Tamal Kundu
In ‘Red Notice,’ three of the biggest franchise juggernauts of Hollywood come together to deliver a nearly two-hour-long fun-filled roller coaster of a film. ‘Red Notice’ is a perfect amalgamation of new-age filmmaking techniques and old-age storytelling. Nolan Booth (Ryan Reynolds) is an exceptional art thief but seems to be perpetually relegated as the second-best in the business because the No. 1, the mysterious Bishop (Gal Gadot), is always a step ahead of him.
After the Bishop’s schemes put Booth and John Hartley (Dwayne Johnson), the FBI profiler chasing them both, in a Russian prison, the two men from different sides of the law decide to form a tentative alliance to foil the Bishop’s plans. Here is everything you need to know about the ending of ‘Red Notice.’ SPOILERS AHEAD.
Red Notice Plot Synopsis
The film devotes its prologue to explaining the history of Cleopatra’s three bejeweled eggs. The legendary Egyptian queen received them from Mark Antony as a symbol of his undying devotion. In the following centuries, these eggs were believed to be myths, nothing more than a figment of human imagination. However, that changed in 1907 when two of those eggs were discovered right outside Cairo, Egypt.
The first ended up at the Museo Nationale di Castel Sant’Angelo in Rome, where it is on display for everyone to see. The second one landed in the private collection of arms dealer Sotto Voce (Chris Diamantopoulos). While most think that the third egg was never found, there are some people who believe otherwise and have spent their lives looking for it.
In the present day, an Egyptian billionaire declares that he will pay $300 million to whoever brings all three eggs to him before his daughter’s (whom he named Cleopatra) wedding day. The film begins as Booth steals the egg from the Italian museum and flees to Bali, but with the information that the Bishop clandestinely provides the authorities, Hartley and Interpol Inspector Urvashi Das (Ritu Arya) track Booth down and arrest him.
Although they find the egg in his possession, it later goes missing again. It is revealed that the Bishop took it to frame Hartley as a thief. Both Hartley and Booth end up in prison in Russia. The Bishop soon shows up there with a proposal for Booth. He apparently knows where the third egg is. She will get him out of prison and give him 10% of the money if he divulges that information to her. Predictably, Booth refuses. The Bishop declares that she will return after acquiring the second egg with an offer of only 5%.
Both Booth and Hartley reluctantly conclude that their best option is to work together so that they can escape from the prison and bring the Bishop down. Neither completely trusts the other person and for good reasons. But as the film progresses, it becomes evident that they work remarkably well together. They travel to Valencia, Spain, where Voce keeps his egg. Hartley tells Booth that he thinks the Bishop has an accomplice because some of the heists she has successfully pulled off require more than one person.
Red Notice Ending: Where Is the Third Egg?
While trying to get to the second egg before the Bishop, Booth and Hartley get captured by Voce, who is revealed to be working with the Bishop. Voce and the Bishop torture Hartley to force Booth to tell them the location of the third egg. Against all odds, it seems to work, and Booth tells them that the egg is inside a secret chamber of the Great Pyramid in Egypt. He found out about it because his mother was an Egyptologist, and he could read hieroglyphics since he was a child. Almost inevitably, the Bishop then double-crosses Voce and escapes with the second egg.
Booth subsequently convinces Hartley that they still need to work together by revealing that he lied to the Bishop about where the third egg is. The egg is actually in Argentina. In April 1945, the war was ending with a humiliating defeat for the Nazis. Rudolph Zeich, Hitler’s art and antiquities dealer, left Germany for Argentina with 16 five-ton shipping containers filled with all the treasures that the Nazis gathered during their reign of terror. The third egg was among them.
After arriving in Argentina, the Nazis built a bunker and stored all the treasures there. Zeich hid the coordinates to the bunker in his own watch, which Booth’s father, a treasure-hunting enthusiast, found. Booth resented his father and believed that he cared more about his timepiece than his son. After his father’s death, Booth threw the watch against the wall and discovered the coordinates inside it. He later put the watch back together, which eventually proves to be a good idea as it serves as the key to open the vault.
Who Is the Bishop? Does the Bishop Have a Partner?
There are plenty of red herrings in ‘Red Notice’ that writer-director Rawson Marshall Thurber employs to misdirect his audience before making the big reveal about the Bishop. Hartley is right when he seems to deduce the Bishop has an accomplice, but it’s not Voce, who is just another pawn in the Bishop and her partner’s game. The real name of the character that Gadot portrays is Sarah Black, and her lover and partner-in-crime is Hartley himself. Together, they are known as the Bishop.
They pull a long con on Booth. Hartley gets close to him by pretending to be an idealistic lawman until the latter puts his guards down and tells him the truth about the third egg. Only after they successfully escape from Inspector Das and her agents with the egg do Hartley and the Bishop divulge the truth about themselves. They then leave Booth handcuffed to a tree, where Das later finds him.
Does the Bishop Get Caught? Who Wins at the End: Hartley, Booth, or the Bishop?
No, neither member of team Bishop gets caught at the end. After delivering the egg to the billionaire, they contact Das, who arrests the said billionaire for possessing Nazi properties. Six months later, Hartley and the Bishop’s celebration near the coast of Sardinia is interrupted when they see that Booth is on their yacht. The latter found Hartley and the Bishop’s’s secure Cayman Island account where they had put the $300 million they got from the billionaire and gave its details to Das, who froze the account.
Evidently, the winner is Booth, but just barely. All three of them have nothing to show from the egg heist. So, Booth proposes a new score, with “double the payout, triple the challenge.” Most importantly, the job requires three thieves. With Das and other Interpol agents rapidly approaching their yacht, Hartley and the Bishop reluctantly accept the offer. The ending sequence finds Booth, the Bishop, and Hartley in Paris, outside the Louvre Museum, ready to launch their newest heist together. Meanwhile, Das issues Red Notices on all of them, effectively turning them into international fugitives.
Read More: Where Was Red Notice Filmed?
