SAS: Red Notice

A woman wielding a hand grenade runs towards our hero. He shoots her in the face and jumps out the window to avoid the ensuing explosion. As he lands he laughs out loud and then jokes with his buddy in the next scene. It's just another wacky day in the life of SAS man Tom Buckingham's crazy existence. And it's the moment you'll realise SAS : Red Notice is a turd.

The opening scenes of this Andy McNab adaption jar. A brutal scene of ethnic cleansing seques into a Downton Abbey-esque introduction of our main character Tom (Sam Heughan), an introduction that has no bearing on the rest of the story whatsoever. He's about to go on holiday to Paris where he'll propose to Doctor Sophie (Hannah John-Kamen), a woman with whom he shares no chemistry. But first there's a bit of business about taking down The Black Swan, a terrorist group led by the father and daughter duo of William (Tom Wilkinson) and Grace Lewis (Ruby Rose). With Dad down and daughter on the run, Tom's work is done and he's off to France via the Channel Tunnel. But when you take out a terrorist cell you should really finish the job...

SAS : Red Notice is a cheap looking, shoddy, mean spirited Die Hard rip off that feels like it's crawled, bleeding and crusty, from the grave of 90's action thrillers. Nothing about it works, from the intensely unlikable lead characters, to the bland, by the numbers fight scenes, the wholly unbelievable terrorists made up of the kind of rich evil families you only ever seen in the pages of a comic book and eventually, the wannabe emotional denouement that will have you howling with laughter. You'll watch it and remember nothing the next day. No, scratch that, you'll remember Andy Serkis, chewing the scenery as a cackling cockney SAS sergeant who gives the film it's one bit of fun. He seems to be the only person onboard who realises he's in a dud so he might as well have a bit of a giggle.

Everyone else plays it straight and the cringe factor is turned up to 11 as a result. Heughan feels like he's auditioning for Daniel Craig's place at the 007 table and on the basis of this you can only fear for the future of that franchise. Tom Wilkinson just looks embarrassed. Ruby Rose comes off like a spoiled child acting out and Hannah John-Kamen sets the Hippocratic Oath back years. You'd assume a fine collection of talent such as this could salvage the film in some way and you'd be very wrong. But it's based on an Andy McNab book you say, he knows his action, he walked the walk and talked the talk as a British soldier in Iraq. He very well might but director Magnus Martens makes a shambles of the action throughout. Shootouts in dark tunnels get boring very fast and the one fight scene that does get the blood pumping, a hand to hand scrap in snowy daylight, only ends up shining a light on how unlikable the main character is once again.

Film fans get that war takes a massive psychological toll on soldiers, we've seen it a 1000 times before but having your hero portrayed as a smirking psychopath leaves a bad taste in the mouth, especially when the film has no interest in delving into what made him the man he is. The aforementioned headshot & lols, smiling lovingly when your betrothed tells you to take bloody revenge, the brutal pistol whippings, everything about the character of Buckingham feels off. He's not someone you'd want to see a franchise built around. Franchise? Oh yes, the ending and the multitude of plot points left hanging are only pointing in one direction. A direction you'll be very hesitant in heading after this.

SAS : Red Notice is screening exclusively on Sky Movies. At best it's background noise to a conversation.