Warning: SPOILERS for Netflix's Red Notice.
Netflix's Red Notice is littered with movie Easter eggs, inspirations, and hidden details in homage to the great action-heist flicks that came before it. Critics have not been kind to director Rawson Marshall Thurber's film, whose attempt to meld Ryan Reynold's Deadpool-derived charm and Dwayne Johnson's brusque FBI persona as a begrudging buddy team didn't land with them, though it fared far better with audiences. Thurber takes a rather on-the-nose approach to paying tribute to the action-heist genre Red Notice nestles in, with the film bursting at the seams with tertiary references and red herring-style Easter eggs.
Netflix's Red Notice sees Special Agent John Hartley (Dwayne Johnson) and international art thief Nolan Booth (Ryan Reynolds) enter a marriage of convenience as they team up to stop Sarah Black, a.k.a. "The Bishop" (Gal Gadot), from collecting the three ancient eggs of Cleopatra. The pair's daring raid on international arms dealer Sotto Voce's (Chris Diamantopoulos) vault is just the tip of the iceberg on a journey that sees Hartley and Booth battling bulls, escaping a Russian prison, and raiding a lost Nazi safehouse in Argentina. Red Notice pays little notice to the concept of realistic, time-bound travel, with Thurber's film cutting between exotic locations interchangeably as he attempts to weave a fantastical espionage yarn.
The Rock, Red Notice veers between genre nods as it creates a tapestry of pop culture references. Here's all the movie Easter eggs and references explained in Netflix's Red Notice.
Indiana Jones
The intentional parallels between scene of Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
Titanic
Following the initial chase scene at the Museo Nazionale di Castel Sant'Angelo, Booth arrives on the shores of his home in Bali in a small rowboat. As he disembarks, the camera pans out to reveal the name of his boat, which is emblazoned with the words "We're going to make it, Rose." This is, of course, a nod to the ill-fated line Leonardo DiCaprio's Jack says to Kate Winslet's Rose right before they plunge into icy water near the end of James Cameron's Deadpool star's quick-witted reply subsequently imprinted on the side of Booth's boat.
Ocean's 11
Ocean's film trilogy, with Thurber's film employing the classic bait-and-switch heist reveals that made Ocean's 11 (2001) such a success upon release. Red Notice revels in the freedom of knowing it does not need to spin a complex narrative, instead favoring flashback cuts that tenuously explain how several twists are able to play out. Examples abound here, with the most obtuse being the climactic reveal that both Hartley and Black are both "The Bishop" as Red Notice takes audiences back to several sleight-of-hand moments seen through the scheming pair's eyes.
Pulp Fiction
Ryan Reynolds has clearly been asked to channel his fourth-wall-breaking, wisecracking Deadpool persona once again in Red Notice, with his character Booth spouting scattershot pop culture references at will. His nod to Pulp Fiction. Nevertheless, the Booth family watch becomes an integral part of the Red Notice narrative, with the heirloom eventually becoming the key to open Zeich's pressurized vault door.
Gladiator
As Hartley and Booth cut a trail of destruction through the Italian national museum, Booth knocks over a priceless clay mold of Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius' head, which Hartley manages to catch in mid-air and place back on its podium. This mold is the very same one featured in Gladiator's initial scenes, which director Ridley Scott pans out to as Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix) suffocates his elderly father after learning Maximus (Russell Crowe) is to succeed Marcus (Richard Harris) as emperor.
Cats
Although perhaps more a poke at Dwayne Johnson's semi-serious rivalry with Vin Diesel than an overt reference, Thurber manages to squeeze in a nod to the universally panned 2019 Cats remake all the same. In Red Notice's penultimate scene, Hartley says, "You know what I think is funny, Booth?" to which Reynolds responds: "Vin Diesel's audition tape for Cats? It exists." This zany one-liner perhaps best exemplifies Red Notice's tendency to scatter pop culture references throughout the bedrock of its interactions.
Alfred Hitchcock's MacGuffin
In the same scene where the Ark of the Covenant is featured, Hartley exasperatedly asks Booth, "How are we going to find this egg?" Booth responds with: "I don't know, look for a box that says MacGuffin," which is a homage to the term coined by the master of suspense himself: Alfred Hitchcock. In short, "MacGuffin" was a moniker used by Alfred Hitchcock for a style of red herring in his movies that the characters are focused on but ultimately becomes insignificant to the audience by the film's end. In the case of Red Notice, this arrives in the form of Cleopatra's jeweled eggs, the fabled object all three protagonists chase.
Jurassic Park
After escaping the clutches of the murderous Sotto Voce, Booth and Hartley find themselves escaping a vast network of tunnels before surfacing in the middle of Looney Tunes.
The Rock
Thurber's dual reference during Booth and Hartley's escape from a Russian prison is one of the cleverer pop culture plays in Red Notice. In a scene akin to 1996's The Rock, Reynolds is able to escape the prison's outer walls by removing a carefully placed stone from the wall's structure, forcing its collapse. There is also the added layer here of Dwayne Johnson's former alter-ego "The Rock," which elicits humor by placing "The Rock" within the fictional setting of The Rock in a scene involving a rock in a joke that perfectly encapsulates the heavy-handed nature of Red Notice's humor.
