Critical Recommendation: Dredd

Sometimes, I think we forget that for as much as movies have the capability to make us feel strong emotions, emotions are still subjective. I mean, if Schindler's List didn't make you feel anything, I don't think you can be helped, but my point still remains. A movie that left one person relatively unshaken might leave another in a puddle of tears in the cinema. Dredd is not a particularly emotional movie. Rather, its strengths lie in its craft, which, when the credits rolled, had me asking two questions. One - how did this movie flop at the box office? And two - why are the critical reviews for this movie so much lower than I felt this movie deserved? The thought occurred to me that maybe I had just looked over some flaw that other critics had noticed, but ultimately, I chose to run with my gut intuition, which classified Dredd as nothing short of an utter masterpiece of action cinema. Seriously, this movie is so good. Its moving pieces are wildly intelligent and effectively utilized, its setting utterly immersive and spectacularly efficient. It shamelessly basks in well-executed action movie fundamentals that would make its more artistic cinematic counterparts blush, and this is just another one of the reasons I love it. Not only is it structurally remarkable. It also simply doesn't care what people may think of it and unapologetically adheres to its pulpy tone. This movie isn't just well-constructed. It's also confident. Perhaps even confident enough to be mistaken for a merely fun piece of entertainment when in reality, it's so much more.

To set the scene for you, Dredd is a 2012 science fiction action film directed by Pete Travis. The year is 2080. Most of the United States is now a nuclear wasteland, and the few cities remaining have fallen into what resembles third-world despotism. Mega-City One, one such city, is policed by Judges, authorities who act as judge, jury, and executioner. Judge Dredd, one such judge, must partner with Judge Anderson, a newer and psychic recruit, to bring order to a highrise run by a brutal crime lord named Madeline "Ma-Ma" Madrigal.

Dredd crafts a vision of post-apocalyptic America that is startling and well-realized. It's extremely thorough, an immersive mixture of gritty groundedness and fantastic comic book sensitivities, and visually very similar to Neill Blomkamp's District 9, to give you something of an idea about this movie's artistic direction, which is thoroughly visionary while also feeling eerily familiar. Occasionally, characters become intoxicated with a hallucinogen known as Slo-Mo, and whenever this happens, the effects are striking. Whoever oversaw the editing and visual effects of the drugged sequences was incredibly talented, and the result was a beautiful audio-visual cacophony that, even if the movie was designed for 3D, resonates on every level.

On the level of character, whoever wrote Dredd and Anderson knew what they were doing, and what's more, the chemistry of actors Karl Urban (Dredd) and Olivia Thirlby (Anderson) is just magnificent. Anderson, in particular, strikes a marvelous balance between the mercy of her psychic side and the mercilessness of her Judge side, and the clashing personalities of the ruthless Dredd and the kinder Anderson work extremely well together. As for the psychic abilities of Anderson, they're not just a gimmick. They're used creatively - practically at times, and even amusingly at others. Her gift is established very early on very clearly, and so her abilities also escape feeling gimmicky.

I noted that the movie itself is basically Black Hawk Down in a dystopian future with its highrise setting, which, by the way, I love. It's an intelligently contained playground of violence that the movie uses to its fullest potential, evolving its situations while also keeping the movie from spiraling off into subplots. Dredd and Anderson's challenges have the common trait of involving Ma Ma and the locked-down skyscraper, but they evolve and change with time, keeping the movie always interesting and ever-escalating, always building towards a conclusion of some kind, never stagnant. The visuals of the movie can be ghoulishly ugly at points, and while some of this can be chalked up to the intentions of 3D-centered cinema, I couldn't help but feel charmed by them. The ugliness of Dredd adds a lot to the movie and rubs your face in its vision of a third-world America, effectively so.

As for the small things, Dredd loves its details, and uses them incredibly well. For instance, there's one scene where Officer Dredd walks down a hallway, and you'll hear a symphony of clicks as each tenant locks their door. It's legitimately impressive. Our protagonists are already far from the greatest people on Earth, and I like this movie's willingness to make Ma Ma such an unapologetically awful person because it gives me reason to want Dredd and Anderson to succeed, even though they're far from white knights. Dredd never compromises on its tone. It fully commits to what makes it unique in every single possible way and never undercuts itself in trying to be more palatable to people who weren't going to like it anyway. On top of everything else, it's got guts.

It might have the aesthetic of a pulp flick, but make no mistake. Dredd is a highly economical and very intelligent movie that remains patient enough to pay off its audience at the end of the movie and yet efficient enough to feel important all the way through. It's a shame that this movie flopped at the box office while also underperforming critically - so much so that I'm wondering if I'm missing something in my review, some kind of flaw that other critics were able to pick up on. This movie is tight as can be, intelligently paced, and committed to its vision of the world in every conceivable way. It's a touch of Die Hard here, a dash of Black Hawk Down there, and a heavy dose of District 9 everywhere. It's frankly a masterwork of plotting that maintains a fresh atmosphere all the way through. It's got something of a cult following, but I think it deserves to have so much more than that. I understand that I'm cutting against the general critical consensus on Dredd, and you're just going to have to trust me on this one. This one is a gem.

Dredd - 10/10

Psalm 11:4-5