Rated: Unrated | Running Time: 90 Minutes
From: Dark Sky Films
On Blu-ray, DVD and VOD September 1, 2015
Ahh, “Redeemer,” a vigilante movie where the martial arts fight scenes, or I guess I should say usually one-sided martial arts fight scenes are fun, the slow-motion sequences of blood-splattering are well done, and the end action sequence with the final kick to the head is rather fantastic. Sounds all well and good, but then there is the rest of the movie. Ugh.
Let’s get to it…
“Redeemer” gives us Pardo (Marko Zaror). He has had such atrocities against him that many a man might collapse, but that’s not what makes him a vigilante. Nope, it’s an atrocity he has done that has put Pardo on a track to beat the crap out of, and sometimes kill, the bad guys who won’t kneel and ask God for forgiveness for the things they’ve done, all in the hopes that by doing so Pardo himself can atone for his sins. And, oh yea, before he goes on his vigilante quest he plays Russian roulette, kind of like, “Well, I didn’t die. Guess I have to go pummel these bad guys now.”
Drifting around from place to place in his hoodie, usually Pardo sees some thugs pick on a hapless shlub, and then Pardo pay the thugs a visit, the thugs are like “Hey, who are you? We’re going to kick your ass!”, and then, one by one, they attack Pardo and Pardo takes them all out, usually with some martial arts craziness, or using their own weapons against them. Hooray for Pardo! In any case, somehow Pardo finds himself in a small town being run by Bradock (Noah segan), a mobster/drug lord, and generally bad man. To help a dude and dudette, Pardo realizes that he must wipe out the entire Bradock organization, which eventually leads him to a one-on-one confrontation with the man who started Bradock on his road to salvation, Scorpion (Jose Luis Mosca). And thus leads us to the big fight scene, and a nice kick to the head.
Look, “Redeemer” is kind of a fun movie at times, in that violent sort of way, and usually English-dubbing over a foreign language film can add to the B-movie fun, but this English-dubbing almost made the film worse, and I might have been better off going for subtitles.
There aren’t really any surprises in “Redeemer,” which is usually normal in a vigilante film, but between the pretty bad acting, the fight scenes that almost got a little too repetitive, and a some pretty dorky villains, the movie just floats along from fight scene to fight scene.
I guess I wanted more, but after watching “Redeemer” I’m also not sure more what? At the end of it all I just didn’t get excited, nor had an interest in Pardo and his quest for salvation, so even with some of the good, the bad just leads this movie to 2 stars out of 5.
Oddly enough I liked the “Making of..” extra on the Blu-ray better than the movie and recommend watching it before the actual movie because it actually adds to the character development that I wish picked up on as the movie played out, and the alternate ending on the deleted scene reel wasn’t that bad.
Oh well. In the end this movie is all about the fight scenes, so watch it for those.
That’s it for this one! L8R!!