Let me just be honest here: if you are a Jason Statham fan, you are going to like this movie. Redemption is the story of Joey Jones (Statham) who is former British Special Forces and has become a homeless vagabond addicted to drugs and alcohol trying to run from both his past as a Special Forces member and a military court martial. After a run-in with a pimp, he lands in a peculiar situation where he is able to assume another identity and turn his life around while becoming a vigilante and righting the wrongs he did by abandoning his family.
Jason Statham brings to the movie what you would expect"”himself. He is a throwback to the Steve McQueen/Paul Newman style of cool, and after he ditches the homeless look, not one piece of clothing is out of place. The person whose apartment he stays in, of course, has clothes that fit him perfectly and naturally has the Mercedes-Benz that he looks just right in. Seriously, people, I laughed out loud in the theater when he was getting dressed. If you or I broke into an apartment, the clothing would be too big or too small, but it would not be that fitted. There were many bit characters that were good, but Jason Statham's leading lady was Agata Buzek, playing the conflicted nun Christina. You don't really feel her confliction until about half-way through the movie, and then you really feel it. Once you get to her back story, her story becomes that much richer and her reasoning that much more full-filling. This was also the first movie were you really see Jason Statham emote. He actually cried, and you felt like crying with him because once you finally get his history and why he is on the streets, so you really feel for his character.
The story that Steven Knight wrote is a good and slightly tragic one. You know basically from the very beginning that this isn't a story with a happy ending. He does a really good job of weaving the back story and his job as a driver for the Chinese mob through the story, but I felt that he tried to shoe horn the side-side-side story of his wife and daughter into it, which is needed but I felt that there wasn't enough time given to that storyline to really make me feel that emotionally involved. I do love London at night, and Knight got just some beautiful scenes out of that city, which really is not that difficult. There were many scenes were you just look at the screen and go "oh! That's a great shot!" and others where you look at it and think "well"¦. I understand what he was aiming for, but he should have done just one more take at a different angle."
The last thing that must be discussed to avoid a disservice is Jason Statham's fight scenes. Watching him fight is just too cool, and sadly you only have a few really great fight scenes, but still, even those few scenes still make you want to get into the gym and start training to just become all that you can be.
In the end, this is a good movie to go to during the day if you are a Jason Statham fan. If you are not the biggest Statham fan then wait for the DVD or Netflix. It really was a fun movie, but with the price of movies going up it is getting tougher and tougher to say "oh yeah, go watch it now!" and then know that I just told you to go watch a movie for $8-12 when really it is a movie that can be watched at home and not lose any of the magic of the scenes.
