Red Notice: All Movie Easter Eggs & References Explained

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.

Netflix’s Red Notice‘s morphing between genres, from action-comedy to heist to adventure movie, plays into the sheer volume of pop culture references within the film. From Raiders of the Lost Ark to 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 Indiana Jones and Red Notice are stark from the outset, with Booth and Hartley’s coveted Egyptian eggs looking very similar to the golden, egg-shaped idol Indy swipes in Raiders of the Lost Ark. The references continue throughout, with the narrative motif of Hitler’s art curator Rudolph Zeich hiding the third egg striking a very similar chord to Raiders of the Lost Ark, in which the Nazis are seeking the relic because Hitler believes it will grant him invincibility. Reynold’s Booth also whistles the Indiana Jones theme song several times as Thurber implores audiences to connect with his protagonists as if they were the perenially charming Doctor Jones themselves. Yet the biggest Indiana Jones Easter egg arrives in Red Notice shortly after Booth and Hartley make it inside Zeich’s secret base. While searching for Cleopatra’s coveted third egg, they stumble upon a crate labeled “Top Secret Army Intel 9906753. Do Not Open,” which exactly matches the identifying number put onto the crate that held the Ark at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark and in the hangar 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 Titanic. Director Thurber reportedly texted his leading man Reynolds asking what he would like his boat to be called during the early stages of filming for Red Notice, with the Deadpool star’s quick-witted reply subsequently imprinted on the side of Booth’s boat.

Ocean’s 11

Red Notice‘s story at times presents as one big homage to the 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 Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction is one such example here, with Booth stating his father’s watch did not have to be keistered as in the story Christopher Walken’s monologue tells midway through 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 Hiram Garcia’s Red Notice bullfighting arena. Facing down an enraged (and poorly CGI’d) bull, Booth tells Hartley that “bulls can’t see you if you stay low and still.” Hartley curtly tells him he is thinking of the velociraptors from Jurassic Park, a realization Booth only has moments before his partner is unceremoniously punted across the arena in a scene that feels at home in a frame from 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.

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