![]() Nearly everyone else in Hollywood is expected to act, or at least pretend to disappear into character. ![]() ![]() Reynolds is one of the few contemporary leading men who can consistently get away with winking at the audience throughout a performance. Naturally, that attitude ruptures whatever reality audiences are supposed to buy into, but it’s worth it, since his zingers so often land (e.g., describing a target’s always-watching, always-listening security as “kinda like Alexa with guns,” or tussling with Johnson, then dropping a perfectly timed, “This is such a confusing erection”). It’s been widely reported that on the “Deadpool” movies, Reynolds improvises (or otherwise comes prepared with) many of his jokes, and the snarky thief he plays here feels like an extension of irreverent cut-ups he’s embodied before. There’s an unmistakable screwball-comedy quality to the repartee, as unlikely partners Booth and Hartley bicker, or anytime the Bishop shows up and upstages the other two. Even more fun than the retro action is the old-fashioned dynamic between these three frenemies, who must cautiously agree to work together in order to locate all of Cleopatra’s eggs. Also channeled are retro favorites like James Cameron’s “True Lies” (including a sexy tango in which a big lug in a tuxedo - Johnson, not Schwarzenegger, in this case - makes himself irresponsibly conspicuous while undercover). The influence of Indiana Jones on Thurber’s splashy travelogue is undeniable. In so doing, Reynolds nimbly outwits his pursuers the way Jackie Chan might have back in the day. Take that first heist, when Booth runs through the museum, only to find himself cornered in a room with a giant metal scaffold, which he proceeds to unhook one pin at a time, until the whole thing comes crashing down. ![]() We’re squarely in ’80s and ’90s action-movie territory here, and Thurber (who took improbability to new heights with the Rock-starring “Skyscraper”) certainly knows how to deliver wild and well-choreographed fights, chases and other stunt-driven set-pieces. Next thing Hartley knows, he’s sharing a cell with Booth in some remote Russian prison. Then the Bishop pops up, swipes the recovered prize, and lands Hartley in hot water, since the Interpol agent in charge, Inspector Das (Ritu Arya), now suspects the former FBI profiler of snagging it himself. The script, which Thurber wrote himself, sets off blazing, as Booth steals Cleopatra’s first egg, narrowly escaping Hartley’s clutches, only to be apprehended when he arrives home in another hemisphere. 5, then streaming for subscribers a week later, “Red Notice” works surprisingly well for what it is. Released by Netflix first in theaters Nov. While Booth and the Bishop ricochet around the world, engaging in what amounts to a high-stakes Easter egg hunt, criminal profiler John Hartley ( Dwayne Johnson) tries to bring them in, making for a fun, fast-paced and frequently amusing divertissement. Their goal is to collect three ornamental orbs - worth some $300 million, but only as a set - originally gifted from Anthony to Cleopatra, then scattered to the corners of the globe. Lifting its title from Interpol’s most-wanted list, “Dodgeball” director Rawson Marshall Thurber’s twisty treasure-hunt lark “ Red Notice” blurs the lines between good guys and bad guys, and instead focuses on which of two notorious art thieves is better at breaking the law: sarcastic master forger Nolan Booth (a reliably whiny Ryan Reynolds) or his upscale nemesis, known only as “the Bishop” (a more wine-and-diney Gal Gadot).
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