"Love Hard" and "Red Notice"

I was all set to write this post about Rebecca Hall's lovely new film, "Passing," but I don't feel like I have the background to say anything meaningful about it. Meanwhile, Netflix recently released the Christmas rom-com "Love Hard," which is a vastly less accomplished movie, but I do have some strong opinions about it. Nina Dobrev stars as Natalie, a girl from California who is so unlucky in love that she writes a column detailing her exploits on endless bad dates. One day, she finally thinks she's met her potential perfect match online, Josh (Jimmy O. Yang), and decides to surprise him in person for Christmas, flying all the way out to his home in Lake Placid, New York. Alas, Natalie has been catfished. Josh used the photos of a better looking friend, Tag (Darren Barnet), for his profile. Now she and Josh have to keep up the ruse that they're dating for the benefit of Josh's parents (James Saito, Rebecca Staab), and older brother Owen (Harry Shum Jr.), while Natalie pursues Tag.


"Love Hard" is an often painfully by-the-numbers romantic comedy, and exactly the sort of thing you'd expect to find in Netflix's Christmas line-up. The jokes about online dating, dick pics, and whether or not "Die Hard" counts as a Christmas movie are a little outdated. And sure, it's cute that the movie pays homage to "Love, Actually" to the extent that it builds the whole finale around recreating the climax, but it's dangerous to be invoking the charms of better movies when yours is so blatantly derivative. However, "Love Hard" does get some extra points for its casting. Nearly all the male characters in the film have Asian ancestry, while the film itself is never explicitly about the Asian-American experience. In fact, considering how little anybody's ethnicity comes up in conversation, this might be a case of actual colorblind casting. And it works very well, because the instant you see Jimmy O. Yang and Natalie's reaction to him, suddenly the sympathetic catfishing premise becomes a lot more plausible.

Netflix may be getting a lot of criticism lately about the quality of their offerings, but they've been very good about diversity in their projects and taking chances on projects with Asian leads like "Cowboy Bebop," "To All the Boys I've Loved Before," "The Half of It," the the upcoming "Last Airbender" reboot, and, of course, "Squid Game."


And on that note, I am unable to resist putting down a few words about "Red Notice," Netflix's latest attempt at blockbuster filmmaking. They spent at least $200 million on an action comedy starring Dwayne Johnson, Ryan Reynolds, and Gal Godot as rival international thieves and law enforcement, bent on stealing three priceless Macguffins, double crossing and one-upping each other along the way. Considering some of the reviews and feedback I'd seen, I was expecting this to be much worse than it was. Yes, the three leads are playing themselves, to the extent where I'm not even going to bother referring to them by their character names. Yes, the direction and script by Rawson Thurber are derivative in the extreme. Yes, the product placement is super obvious. However, for this kind of movie, "Red Notice" is perfectly decent at delivering what it promises - noise, action, and the occasional decent one-liner. If you liked the "Hitman's Bodyguard" movies, or the "National Treasure" movies, or anything involving Dwayne Johnson in a jungle punching things, you'll probably like this one too.


It's actually kind of fascinating to see a star vehicle like this being made in 2021, and to realize that it's become kind of a throwback. Most films this size are built around existing IP now, and action spectaculars based on star power are often the realm of B-movies and direct-to-DVD dreck. Reynolds, Johnson, and Godot aren't bad at all in the film, but you can also clearly see the limitations of their talents because they're given so little to work with. The supporting cast is remarkably sparse, with no real villain to root against. The plot is a straightforward Macguffin hunt with a twist so feebly deployed, you wonder why they bothered. Still, there's plenty of money onscreen, the pace is quick, and the leads are charming. I personally wouldn't have spent $200 million on this, but "Red Notice" is not the end of cinema or the end of Netflix. It's a perfectly mediocre movie, and that's okay.



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