After video spreads of a massacre in a Georgian village committed by private military contractor Black Swans, Interpol issues a Red Notice on Black Swans leasers William Lewis (Tom Wilkonson) and his adult children Grace (Ruby Rose) and Oliver "Olly" (Owain Yeoman). While the official task is to arrest the Black Swans, at the direction of the Prime Minister, High Ranking SAS officer George Clements (Andy Serkis) seeks to kill the Black Swans as not to unleash scandal about the British Government and gas company Britgaz who hired them. The first attempt by the SAS only kills William leaving Grace and Olly to enact their fail safe. With SAS officer Tom Buckingham (Sam Heughan) on board the Eurostream to Paris with his girlfriend (Hannah John-Kamen) with the intent to propose, their trip is soon interrupted as the Black Swans seize the train and ransom the passengers against the British government with only Tom able to act against the Black Swans.
Based on the Tom Buckingham series of books by Andy McNab, who also serves as a co-producer and writer on the film, SAS: Red Notice is one of Sky Cinema's original productions made to compete on the same playing field as Amazon and Netflix original films. The film has a rich source with Andy McNab, former SAS veteran turned author, very much the U. K. equivalent to Tom Clancy with his books praised for their details and thrilling action and there's definitely a foundation to be built upon, but unfortunately the film's turgid pacing, blandly staged action, and lack of tensions leads to a slog that ends this franchise before it even starts.
Danish Director Magnus Martens has a proven track record with the decent dark comedy film Jackpot adapted from the Jo Nesbo novel as well as experience helming episodes of Banshee and 12 Monkeys, but here Martens finds himself out of his element as he doesn't frame or pace the film like an action thriller and instead treats it more like a procedural with much of the action presented in a rather detached fashion. The movie is basically yet another entry in the ever popular well of Die Hard clones and here the premise feels misjudged with the Eurostream equivalent of the Eurostar being rather cramped in real life in comparison to its film equivalent and even if we overlook that detail the setting isn't all that visually interesting with not much in the way of mining for potential action beats. The movie tries to operate on other levels such as a subplot of a mole (or "snide" as they call it) in the SAS but its such a limp attempt at intrigue with really only two possible suspects that the reveal comes off as rather limp and unimpressive (possibly a plant for sequel bait). Some of the shadowy political power plays with Britgaz and the Prime Minister are potentially interesting, but we're often held at a distance from these proceedings despite them being the most engaging.
The cast does fine for the most part (even if there's not much to work with), Andy Serkis has fun playing an unscrupulous figure not afraid to get his hands dirty, and I did enjoy Ruby Rose as Grace Lewis. Sam Heughan of TV's outlander as our lead is fine I guess in the film, but there's really not all that much to his character. The movie tries to analyze Psycopathy since Andy McNab has been diagnosed as a functioning Psychopath and incorporates that into some of his characters, but we never really get to feel exactly what that entails with Tom Buckingham and there's not much in the way of depth. There's certainly depth to be mined from protagonists with psychological baggage as seen in reliable staples like Dexter and Hannibal, but the movie just pays lip service to it if even that.
SAS: Red Notice is a rather underwhelming military thriller that is reminiscent of the underwhelming international co-productions Euan Lloyd (Who Dares Wins, Fflokes,etc.) made back in the 70s and 80s with a fresh coat of paint. With a rather flat delivery that's lacking in tension and action that's not engaging SAS: Red Notice kills whatever chance it has at a franchise.
