Writer-director Rawson Marshall Thurber (Skyscraper, Central Intelligence, Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story) helms this old fashioned action heist comedy about FBI Agent John Hartley (Dwayne Johnson) who’s brought in by Interpol Inspector Urvashi Das (Ritu Arya) to help capture one of the world’s greatest art thieves, Nolan Booth (Ryan Reynolds), who is being set up by another art thief, The Bishop (Gal Gadot), in a story of shifting alliances.
The prize at stake is a trio of bejeweled eggs purportedly given as a wedding gift 2,000 years ago from Marcus Antonius to his bride Cleopatra. The film is self-reflective enough to mention these are essentially MacGuffins—nothing more than an object to motivate the story’s characters. What we’re really here for is to watch the verbal sparring between Reynolds and Johnson, the well-choreographed chases and fights, and Gal Gadot being … well, simply stunning.
This breezy caper flick, which is included in your Netflix subscription—isn’t doing anything new to update the genre, which may be why it’s been roundly panned by critics, but in its defense, it’s not trying to do anything new. In fact, it seems more interested in nodding to its influences and letting its stars’ considerable chemistry carry the weight of the film, which they do. Reynolds is laugh-out-loud funny, Johnson is hulking but vulnerable, and Gadot is charming and dangerous. It’s an easy watch. (118 min.)
—Glen Starkey
This article appears in Nov 11-18, 2021.