One Mann’s Movies review of SAS: Red Notice (2021).
Bob the Movie Man’s Rating:
Plot Summary:
“SAS: Red Notice” sees the UK Prime Minister (Ray Panthaki – channelling a future Rishi Sunak??) being naughty with army guy Clements (Andy Serkis). They’ve been secretly hiring the mercenary group “The Black Swans”. This is a family business comprising William Lewis (Tom Wilkinson), his daughter Grace (Ruby Rose) and his son Olly (Owain Yeoman). Their latest task is to clear Georgian villages in the path of a ‘Britgas’ pipeline. But when things go wrong, the truth comes to light and the Lewises are served with ‘Red Notices’ bringing in the UK Special Air Service team to either capture or kill them. Tom Buckingham (Sam Heughan), as well as being an aristocrat with a handsome country pile, is also a top SAS operative. His team, together with his colleague Declan Smith (Tom Hopper) and boss Major Bisset (Noel Clarke), raid the Lewis’s gaff.
After this – partially successful – mission, Tom takes his doctor girlfriend Sophie (Hannah John-Kamen) on the ‘Eurostream’ train to Paris, with the intention of proposing. But (as chance would have it!) Grace Lewis is also on the train and planning a terrorism and extortion event that Spectre would be proud of.
About to go through the wardrobe! Sam Heughan as the SAS hero. (Source: Altitude Film Entertainment)
Certification:
Talent:
Starring: Sam Heughan, Ruby Rose, Hannah John-Kamen, Andy Serkis, Tom Wilkinson, Owain Yeoman, Tom Hopper, Noel Clarke.
Directed by: Magnus Martens
Written by: Laurence Malkin (Based on the book by Andy McNab).
Psycho vs Psycho: an interesting concept. (Source: Altitude Film Entertainment)
Review:
Positives:
- As an Andy McNab written story, and with McNab consulting on the movie, there is a nice authenticity to some of the action scenes.
- The concept, of having a ‘good psychopath’ vs a ‘bad psychopath’ (given the wholly thing is written by a functioning psychopath (in McNab), is an interesting one. But….
“I have the most striking looks”. “No, I have the most striking looks”. The two female stars go eye-to-eye. (Source: Altitude Film Entertainment)
Negatives:
- …the whole thing is poorly delivered, starting with the script which is CLUNKINGLY bad. Some of the dialogue is execrable. A case in point: a gloopy exchange between Buckingham and a French girl on the top of the train. #makeitstop.
- This is a really good cast: at least, it has great *potential*. I’ve put this as a negative since it is just wasted on the material. The ever reliable Tom Wilkinson is great, and I was longing for him to be in the film more. Sam Heughan is fine, and I can see why he might be on the shortlist to play the next Bond. The two female leads both have striking looks: Australian Ruby Rose (memorable from “The Meg“) makes for an interestingly icy villainess, and Hannah John-Kamen (also the best thing in “Ant Man and The Wasp“) holds her own as the kick-ass girlfriend. (Interesting fact: John-Kamen’s stunning looks come from her heritage which is half Nigerian / half-Norwegian). And Serkis adopt a rough-and-ready sweary cockney persona that is fun: he seems to be having the most fun in the movie.
- Some of the scene shifts make no sense and smack of a low budget. At one point Tom is chasing Grace through a vineyard and then ends up in a forest with six inches of snow on the ground! Did they pass through a magical wardrobe or something? At another point, characters are shooting through a gas pipe on a cart and then magically manage to find and open a hatch to get out…. which seems nonsensical.
Summary:
It’s a really dumb actioner that frustrated me with its mediocrity. While Amazon and Netflix seem to have got their production facilities well sorted (and are delivering some gems amongst some dross), the same can’t be said of “Sky Originals”. First “Twist” and now this. Until and unless things improve, they seem to be the byword for what we used to call ‘straight to video’ dross.
Trailer:
The trailer is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRuUB6RKExQ.
I totally agree with all your bad points and am afraid I also disagree with your good ones too. This film is utter rubbish. The weapon handling scenes are abysmal and totally unlike how an SOF operator would handle them, wounded by a round in the neck (scratch) which if she (Ruby) would have had a full cup and saucer on her head, wouldn’t have spilled a drop to then get immediate attention from a colleague wielding a pre needled hypodermic syringe which if had morphine in, a slight push would have killed the aforementioned stone dead. As for all… Read more »
Thanks for the detailed comment! You clearly have a lot more specialist background in this area than I do! I think we both can agree to agree it was bad: we are just measuring degrees of awful!
Fun Fact. Andy McNabb, the author, was a former SAS agent. He oversaw every detail of the film including the sound effects, He took the actors to a real training facility and continued to be on set to supervise how weapons and tactics were used in real situations.
Thanks… was aware of the that, but not that he’d taken them to a training site. Thanks for the input!
It’s Sam Hueghan not Tom Hueghan. His love interest is a doctor and not a nurse.
D’oh!!! Thanks – I’ll correct that.