Lately I’ve been reading some of Pauline Kael’s movie criticism. Kael found fame writing for the New Yorker magazine in the 1960s and some of her long-form reviews linked two or more movies by some common thread in a way that was largely unknown in film criticism of the time. When I saw these two crime movies on back to back days I decided to take the same approach and give it a go, because they each address modern crime in highly different ways. Star ratings are given at the end of this review.
Red Notice is Rawson Marshall Thurber’s upbeat caper film starring Ryan Reynolds, Dwayne Johnson and Gal Godot, involving a frenzied search for Cleopatra’s three bejeweled eggs that moves all around the world, with Interpol agents in close pursuit. The plot — as noted within the movie’s dialogue — is essentially one big McGuffin, allowing for the characters to cross, double-cross and eventually triple-cross one another in expectation of life-changing riches. Starting in an art museum, it is a caper film that references a long line of earlier capers and adventures, with the strongest influence that of Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Crime is not particularly criminal in Red Notice (although the title refers to Interpol’s “most wanted ” designation of criminals). Whether its protagonists are stealing the eggs, attempting to break out of prison, incessantly needling each other or outrunning bullets, comic adventure is the name of the game. Hundreds, if not thousands, of bullets are expelled in this movie and yet not one character is killed. Not one henchman, guard, innocent bystander or dastardly villain is killed. It’s all a game, a theme reinforced by the never-ending prattle of Ryan Reynolds’ athletic thief, Nolan Booth, and the sultry sexiness of Gal Godot as The Bishop. Yup, that’s her handle.
As allegiances waver and switch, locations move from Europe to Asia to South America, this movie, written and directed with vigor by Rawson Marshall Thurber, tries really, really hard to entertain. It succeeds much of the time, what with in-jokes, deadpan cultural references and winks of the eye admitting the nonsense factor is off the charts, but, hey, just roll with it. This is what modern entertainment has come to: crime as comedy.
Wrath of Man takes a decidedly different approach. Guy Ritchie’s crime drama is grim and brutal, with almost no lighthearted comedy or sex to get in the way of its relentless path toward vengeance. Based on the2004 French film Le Convoyeur (Cash Truck), the film details how Patrick Hill (Jason Statham), known as “H” in the armored vehicle company where he takes a job, hides his own real identity and agenda in order to uncover the facts behind the death of his son. The film unfolds in chapters which jump around in time and location, gradually revealing the bloody backstory of Hill’s son’s death, who is responsible for it, and the lengths to which Hill is willing to go to avenge it. Beneath all of this storm-und-drang is an unusually downbeat and repetitive music score which initially irritated me until it became a propulsive force pushing the drama to its inevitable conclusion.
This is not a caper film. It is a heist film. The differences are major. Heists, unlike capers, are serious business. People get hurt and die in heist films. Especially at the end of this one, when the criminals attempt to rob the entire armored vehicle depot of upwards of 150 million dollars. There are certainly similarities with the caper format, including hidden identities and switched allegiances, but the tone of a good heist film is far darker than any caper movie. Whether it’s Armored Car Robbery (1950), David Mamet’s Heist (2001) or Wrath of Man, the rules of the game are clear and deadly.
I’ve seen some reviews opining that this is just another Jason Statham crime movie, and not a very good one. I do not concur. Guy Ritchie’s re-enactment of this French film that I have not seen is sharp and detailed and crisp. It develops a Rashomon-like feel to the initial hold-up, which is revisited from different perspectives to show the totality of the situation and its tragic consequences. It jumps around to gradually reveal who is really who and what they are really after, because first appearances can be deceiving. It is spot-on regarding human nature and greed when so much money is on the line. Its editing is top-notch and the doomsday music never lets you forget that annihilation is forthcoming. Its intensity is high and its stable of actors is well cast and very effective, from Eddie Marsan to Holt McCallany, from Josh Hartnett to Scott Eastwood.
Finally, this crime film doesn’t glory in the cleverness and unkillability of its main characters; everyone is vulnerable and many perish in the climactic shootout. Attempting a theft this big has consequences, many of them lethal. To his credit Ritchie avoids excessive gore, but it is violent and grim, just as it should be. While there are a couple of things that confuse me, mainly about Hill himself, I think that Wrath of Man, like those two earlier heist films I mentioned, is a minor classic of its kind, and I will be sure to see it again to appreciate its nuances and nihilistic merits. After I saw it I kept thinking about the aftermath; one could make a whole other movie about the aftermath of the depot robbery attempt, the investigation into what happened and who the inside participant was, and the grief of the family and friends of all those who died so unnecessarily.
In terms of crime, Wrath of Man has a whole lot more to say than Red Notice. Which will last longer in the public consciousness? Because of its popular cast and tone of light entertainment I would think that Red Notice might be well remembered in years to come, although it really doesn’t amount to much. I suspect that Wrath of Man will be slotted as lesser grade Guy Ritchie fodder due to its relative lack of humor, plus the fact that so many Jason Statham films seem to cover similar ground. But my own take is that Wrath of Man is far superior. Red Notice: ☆ ☆ 1/2. Wrath of Man: ☆ ☆ ☆ (and trending upwards).