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Redemption | 2013 | R | - 5.7.6

A former UK Special Forces soldier (Jason Statham) in Afghanistan is fleeing a court-martial. In London, he hides in the criminal underworld and takes another man's identity but when he finds out that his missing girlfriend has been murdered by a ruthless criminal he takes revenge. Also with Agata Buzek, Vicky McClure, Senem Temiz, Benedict Wong and David Bradley. Directed by Stephen Knight. Several scenes feature Chinese language with English subtitles. [1:40]

SEX/NUDITY 5 - At a café a nun holds a man's hand and says she wants to spend the last day of her life with him; the camera cuts to the inside of an apartment where shoes, clothing, car keys, etc., are strewn across a table and floor leading to a bedroom where the door is partially open and we see nothing beyond the door, but sex is implied; the owner of the apartment comes home, looks through the mail slot of the safety-chained door and sees a nun putting on her shoes as a man puts on his jacket and the two leave by the fire escape; the man and the woman kiss twice on a sidewalk as they say goodbye.
 Three prostitutes wear sleeveless dresses that extend to mid-thigh, revealing thighs, legs and arms; in a bedroom, another prostitute wears a long white slip with black bra straps showing, along with black hose and pumps; she falls once and reveals full thighs and legs covered in black pantyhose (please see the Violence/Gore category for more details). A man stands in a shower with his bare back to the camera (please see the Violence/Gore category for more details). We see a shirtless man in an apartment from the back, dressed in trousers; we see his bare back, neck and arms that show some scars and a few tattoos.
 In an apartment, two paintings depict the bare back and buttocks of a man, while another painting features bare abdomen of a man. In a gallery showing, we see several photo and painting close-ups of male torsos in which the bared waists and genitals are encircled with ropes and chains.
 A pimp kisses a homeless woman in an alley and abducts her to make her a prostitute. A nun wears a red dress and attends a gallery opening and as she walks along a street with a male friend she tells him that she is drunk and he kisses her briefly.
 A nun tells a man that her gymnastics instructor molested her beginning at the age of 10. A Chinese merchant pays for illegal aliens and asks the deliveryman, "There are some girls, do you want some?" A man tells a woman neighbor in an apartment house that he is the boyfriend of the male apartment owner; the woman later asks the man about his sexual preference and he says, "Recently, I've found myself attracted to nuns." A man's ex-wife shouts at her ex-husband in a grocery store, telling him that she is forced to perform oral sex for money since he became disabled by his military service (please see the Violence/Gore category for more details). A black and white lighted sign over a nondescript shop door reads "Adults Only."

VIOLENCE/GORE 7 - A flashback shows a young female gymnast practicing, until her instructor enters the room and we hear a voiceover say that he is a child molester (please see the Sex/Nudity category for more details); when he faces her and touches both her shoulders, she opens a pocketknife and slashes his throat twice causing blood to splatter from a deep throat wound and we hear that she was sent to a convent afterward.
 A rich man looks at three prostitutes in a line by an airport elevator and chooses one; we later see police photos of her lying dead and hear that she was pulled from a river; we see the man in a dimly lit room with a woman as he begins to beat her, slapping and punching her, he slams her head into a cabinet, bends her neck back, and punches her again as she shouts in pain (it is dark enough to hide her wounds from view).
 A man grabs another man at a formal penthouse party, rushes him to a ledge railing, bends him backward over it and the man screams; the first man picks up the second man, throws him over the side and we see the victim falling to the pavement as he screams, but do not hear him landing.
 A soldier in the Royal Marines has several flashbacks to his service in Afghanistan and we see his five comrades shot with automatic rifle fire through the roof of a tank and die as blood pours from their mouths. A half dozen flashbacks to the Afghanistan war show a soldier firing a rifle into the air as he gathers up five men; the soldier takes one man into a building and shoots him while other men and women outside scream that the victim is innocent; we see a blindfolded man suddenly hanged by a rope noose from the rafters of a room that is open to the street and people scream; we hear that the solder killed five random men because his five teammates were killed in action; during one flashback, we hear an Islamic call to prayer and Catholic nuns singing a hymn while several times we hear the sounds the soldier hears in his head (men shouting, automatic rifle fire, mortars exploding and women's screams); one flashback becomes a nightmare and he awakens to hallucinations of military insect-like buzzing cameras swarming around his room and then becoming humming birds, and then he sees the hanged man fall with a crash from the ceiling and he fires a rifle that changes into a candlestick before awakening fully and gasping. Scenes of the war in Afghanistan feature large explosions with smoke and flames, loud gunfire and men falling with a little blood showing on faces and mouths.
 A money collector in a café kitchen fights off five men using martial arts moves; he twists their arms and puts a long knife to the café owner's throat until he pays the money he owes; another man draws a gun on the money collector, who quickly turns and shoots him in the shoulder, causing some blood to appear. A cook in a restaurant is called into the street by a party of five male soccer players who ate there; they call him names, curse and attack him, until he fights all five successfully with kicks, punches, arm locks, pressure point moves, and leg sweeps leaving four unconscious, tells the fifth not to miss his train and walks back through the restaurant. At a phone booth, a tall man pulls a machete on a shorter ex-soldier, who beats the first man and a third man into unconsciousness and then walks away. In an alley, a man confronts two men that previously beat him; one man pulls a knife and the man shows a spoon, then punches and kicks the men, and tosses one into a dumpster, and then drags him back out; he steps on the elbow of one man, breaking it inside-out twice amid screams of pain, he puts the handle of the spoon to one of the other man's eyes while against a wall and says he'll take the eye out and kill him until the subdued man gives him information; the first man removes the spoon and lets him go.
 An ex-Royal Marine is shown to be homeless, living on the streets, dirty and longhaired; he is attacked and brutally beaten by five thugs in an alley and he suffers facial lacerations and two broken ribs before escaping and he breaks into an apartment and assumes another man's identity; he drinks vodka (please see the Substance Use category for more details), gasps and later vomits into a toilet with his back to the camera (we hear but do not see the vomiting).
 A former soldier takes a job as a cook in a Chinese restaurant and then accepts criminal jobs from the owners in order to earn money to send to his ex-wife and daughter; he collects drug and prostitution money, slaps and breaks the arms of men who do not pay, and extorts protection money from other restaurants.
 A man removes a padlock from a semi-truck and finds large cardboard cartons containing humans that each stick one hand through a hole in order to be counted and we hear that some are children; the man delivers the truck to a Chinese merchant, who pays for the illegal immigrants. The film shows homeless populations in the alleys of London, including military veterans with mental health problems living on the streets. We hear a voiceover of a nurse stating that a male patient has PTSD.
 A woman in a market throws several items of canned goods at her ex-husband, misses, and shouts, because he is disabled and cannot support their daughter; he grabs her and she becomes quiet. A man jumps into the back seat of a waiting car as a 10-year old girl runs into the street, screaming; we do not hear what happened, but hear that she is someone's little sister. A man becomes angry when he sees photos of a dead female friend; he burns them in a grill at a café and upturns the table. A man becomes angry and throws a bowl across his kitchen with a loud crash. A man shouts through his own mail slot when he cannot open his own door because it is chained from the inside; he sees a man and a woman leaving by the fire escape and shouts at them without their acknowledgement.
 In a refrigerated Chinese fish factory, men cut heads of fish and remove bloody guts in close-up; the cutting tables are covered in slime and fish scales and we can see the breath of the workers from the cold.
 We hear from Chinese gangsters that a man kills prostitutes. A man lies on a sidewalk beside a woman friend sitting on the curb and tells her that he has flashbacks from the war in Afghanistan as he cries (please see the Substance Use category for more details).
 A nun drinks a glass of champagne at a gallery, walks to the sidewalk and says she feels like throwing up, but does not.
 A man stands in a shower with his bare back to the camera and we see long scars on his back and some blood along new bruises and lacerations.

LANGUAGE 6 - About 17 F-words, 2 scatological terms, 3 anatomical terms, name-calling (crazy, gangster, hypocrite, quack, pig, monkey, rubbish), stereotypical references about soldiers, nuns, men, women, the homeless, prostitutes, the police, Italians, the Chinese, 4 religious exclamations.

SUBSTANCE USE - Several homeless men and one homeless woman hide crack cocaine rocks in their cheeks until two thugs make them open their mouths and steal it, and a man receives antibiotics and codeine tablets from a nun from a full medicine cabinet in a mission and takes them home (we see him swallow them with vodka). A man drinks large quantities of vodka from bottles in several scenes and he gasps between swallows, a man walks out onto the street and stumbles while we see blurry streets and people from his point of view (he is intoxicated), a man decides to become sober and pours a bottle of vodka down a kitchen drain (he begins drinking again in a few weeks), men and women drink champagne at a gallery showing, a woman (she is a disguised nun) leaves a gallery showing and stumbles along a sidewalk while saying that she is drunk, bartenders mix drinks at a large party while men and women walk around drinking champagne and cocktails, men drink wine and beer form tall glasses in two restaurant scenes, a man pours two glasses of wine that no one drinks, a man wearing a rumpled tuxedo and holding a bottle of vodka lies at the edge of a sidewalk in front of an opera theater, a man says to a female friend that when he is sober and healthy he hurts people, and a man walks down an alley while drinking from a small bottle of vodka and we hear his voiceover saying that he has returned to living in the streets. Three homeless men in an alley smoke cigarettes, a shopkeeper in an alley smokes a cigarette, and a well-dressed man smokes a cigarette as he walks down a sidewalk.

DISCUSSION TOPICS - War, PTSD, alcoholism, crime, human trafficking, wrong accusations, acquittal, justice, relationships, responsibilities, making amends, redemption.

MESSAGE - Redemption is more important than revenge.

CAVEATS

Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.

We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.

Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated, Special, Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.


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