SAS Rise of the Black Swan, initially known as SAS Red Notice, is a British action-thriller with a subtly romantic theme that was released on Netflix in March 2021. The thriller movie with tons of suspense made nearly $198,432 in Box Office.
Plot
SAS Rise of Black Swan has a pinch of political element blended with action-packed thrill as it basically opens with introducing the Black Swan paramilitary force, which the government utilized to get rid of external threats and influences. Caught are the protagonists who were two young lovers, one out of which was a Special Forces official. They had planned a peaceful train trip away from the daily drama, during which they are forced to fight off mercenaries and survive while maintaining their country’s dignity.
Reviews and Criticism
As much as the film was loved by those who share a penchant for action and thrill, it wasn’t exactly a success. Critics claim that the scripting and character development part could have been done better. The film failed in establishing the emotional elements clearly, due to which the audience felt disconnected.
If we go by the rating of Rotten Tomatoes to gauge the reviews from critics and audiences, the movie has a score of 53%, which keeps it in the category of any other average action-packed movie. Critics have particularly pointed out the loopholes at the director’s and writer’s part. While the movie’s casting was good enough, it goes shabby as it proceeds towards the climax, and most people don’t understand what is happening by the time it reaches the end.
Is it Binge-Worthy?
SAS Rise of Black Swan or SAS Red Notice isn’t a bad movie. It will be loved by the audience who’s rummaging for action and suspense lovers to whom other things don’t matter as much.
The script and direction of the movie could’ve been made better by a great lot. A lot of details in the movie stand unexplained, being dragged ambiguously. Plus, there is nothing unique about the movie. It has a sequence that you’d know everything about already if you are into action movies. There were several minor detail errors, but those would be overlooked in the first watch.
At the end of it, the movie is likely to appeal to everybody, particularly those from the late nineties, who’ve been movie lovers and have been there since they used to come in CDs and DVDs at local stores.
Conclusion
The movie doesn’t exactly fit in the ‘skip it’ bracket, but one is only advised to watch it if he’s not expecting a great deal out of it. Given the long runtime, you must look out as to whether you want to invest your time watching it or not. For those who only prefer highly qualitative content, this movie can be skipped.
It is enjoyable and decent when it comes to action but not the one from which high hopes can be kept.
For some reason, the entire point of this movie is missed in this review and in others I have seen. This was an action movie but it was also an intellectual movie with an important point about human psychology. For anyone who thinks this movie didn’t have a solid plot, you missed this point. Even the title of the movie refers to this point about human psychology and what is going on in our society right now.
“Black Swan” is a term they are using to refer to Psychopaths. The group of paramilitary fighters who are the villains in this movie are psychopaths, and the movie points this out directly in many ways. The older man says he has never loved anyone in his life. The female villain commits many random violent acts with zero remorse. The hero in the story, Tom, is one who is sort of on the spectrum but not really. The question is raised multiple times throughout the movie: does he have remorse? Can he truly love? Empathy and remorse are entirely lacking in psychopaths, so the question is asked, is Tom a psychopath too? And in the end the question is answered: no he is not. He is capable of killing when it is necessary, and he does not regret the loss of life if it is a violent psychopath he is killing. His fiance finally accepts this necessity at the end. And Tom is capable of love, and is devoted to her.
There is another point about psychopaths that this movie makes. They are out there, and they hide in plain sight. You think they are normal people, but they are not. They operate in society in ways that do not necessarily make them obvious to spot. And they have value to the military because they will not hesitate to pull the trigger. They do the dirty work that no one else wants to do. This movie demonstrated the reality that the military KNOWS about these people and uses them for their own purposes. In this movie the Black Swans were used to clear a village that was inconvenient, by our government. It is apparent that this is not theoretical: this is happening in our military. And the problem I have with it is that the military is not doing anything to support the people who are affected by the psychopaths: their families. Psychopaths abuse others around them simply by default. When you don’t have empathy, you are casually and inadvertently cruel. Also these people have a lot of hatred and anger because they don’t have tender feelings, and their spouses and children bear the brunt of this. (Because of the absence of many emotions, psychopaths are bored and they allow their anger to stir simply because it alleviates the boredom. They don’t place a value judgment on the emotion simply because WE find it uncomfortable. And watching our reactions is entertaining to them.) The military needs to do more to identify these traits in their members and to put limits on the abuse of their families. I know all this because it happened to me.
And finally, the title of the movie has an even deeper and symbolic meaning. “The RISE of the Black Swan” is a reference to the fact that we have more of these people in our society right now than we ever realized. The hatred and discrimination and ideas about “cancel culture” that have arisen over the last 5 years are directly related to the fact that these people have very recently been enabled to come out of their closets and demand their right to be hateful without censure. They are sick of hiding and pretending to be like the rest of us in empathic society in order to get along and get their needs met. This is why so many people are refusing to take responsibility for public health and wear masks and get vaccinated: the idea that they should be responsible or care about others is offensive to them. What we have been witnessing is a sociopath revolution. The end result of allowing this to go on will be a fascist takeover of our country. Fascism is the government style that sociopaths/psychopaths prefer. And they are “rising”.
This movie was clearly an attempt by the producer to shed light on these issues with psychopaths in order to bring this risk to our democratic/empathic society into general awareness. If all you saw was an action movie, then they failed.
SAS: Rise of the Black Swan is a top action movie. A good movie. And very interesting. It emphasize the hard violence as part of a psychopathic nature of some of the main characters and it gives a way out of this.