I Watch Films: SAS: Red Notice

SAS: Red Notice

I watched this hoping for a dumb action film and I was not disappointed. It also had a stab at some ideas and themes. The explicit one from the initial voiceover, the one that drives the romance sub-plot and informs the main conflict, is the film’s take on psychopathy. It claims that a psychopath who can face violence without qualms or stress, who is also capable of love, is as rare as a black swan.

Black Swans is the name of a British-based mercenary group run by American William Lewis (Tom Wilkinson) and his children Grace (Ruby Rose*) and Olly, at least two of whom are able to face violence without qualms or stress. In the opening sequence they are employed by George Clements (Andy Serkis) to clear a village for a pipeline in remote Georgia. This goes wrong and they massacre everyone. Sometime later, back in London, a red notice (real) for their arrest has been issued, which would be embarrassing as they were working for the British Government.

Tom Buckingham (Sam Heughan), a rich and posh SAS soldier is in London intending to take his girlfriend Doctor Sophie Hart (blog favourite Hannah John-Kamen) to Paris for the weekend to propose to her. Then he gets the call and without a moment’s hesitation heads out to Clements operation to arrest Lewis. This becomes a mixed action/tension sequence, with a cat-and-mouse hunt through the big house on Hampstead Heath and Lewis being murdered by Clements; Tom and his mate Declan (Tom Hopper) narrowly escape being grenaded by diving out a high window.

In the aftermath of this fiasco Tom confides his intent to propose to Sophie to Declan who is dubious because he thinks Tom is incapable of love (he's able to face violence without qualms or stress). In the light of this Tom decides to immediately pick up Sophie and they catch the "Eurostream" to Paris. (The London geography is not obviously wrong but I do wonder how he thinks his motorbike is going to be in the parking spot outside St Pancras for the weekend). Obviously Grace and a bunch of Black Swan mercenaries are on board the train with a plan to get revenge and/or a payoff and the film moves into its extended middle sequence with more cat-and-mouse, betrayal, secrets, reversals, misdirections and a number of fights ranging from the workmanlike to the rather good.

To put it another way, this is a dumb action film, but it is not a stupid dumb action film; it does not go out of its way to insult our intelligence. There are a few bits that don’t add up and the cracks have to be covered by characters of varying degrees of psychopathy and also the pace of events. More often the superior cast use their charm to ease us out of an awkward moment and into an fight scene. This is not always great, so on balance ask it you want an undemanding action thriller. If that’s what you want it's pretty good!

Watch This: For a tense film with plenty of fights and charismatic actors standing off with one another, and occasionally some actual character-based conflict
Don’t Watch This: If you don’t like problems solved with explosions, knives and the odd betrayal

* Ruby Rose, an Australian actress, would presumably be familiar with the native Australian black swan