Hummingbird / Redemption - Review -SPOILERS-

Redemption, also known as Hummingbird in the US and Crazy Joe in France, is the tale of a man on the run from military courts, who comes across a new opportunity to rebuild his life.

Hummingbird is a gritty, dark and well formed movie. Upon entering the theatre, it was very quiet with very little people in. This got me a little cautious of the advertisings reflection upon the movie - Has the trailer been so bad that no one wants to see if?, Why is there only one showing of this movie on its release day? All of that lark, but if you have had these sorts of thoughts, I highly recommend you go see it!

We open in Afganistan; viewing the area from a UAV air drones camera. Chaos on the ground, screen static and tensions rising between each comm message. Music builds gradually, then suddenly we hear the popping of a rifle, screams from the locals and the identification process. A sudden snap to black and a snappy return of visual movement, we are no in London. Radio chatter still continues as we scour London's city scape. We've seen this sort of style before, a mix of shots from around the world, perhaps a few news stories too but this felt different. One, we end up in the UK. Two, there was a tugging feeling which caught your curiosity.

Then, dropped into a backstreet alley where some local thugs are kicking the homeless' box shelters and threatening them for rent. A brawl breaks out with a seamlessly invisible man (who we all know to be Statham) who is beaten to the ground and runs for the roofs for safety and drops into an empty
apartment. Now he uses this opportunity to reinvent himself. Involving himself with the Yakuza and a new love interest, Crazy Joe is forced to earn a living, fight PTSD and get the devout Christians love.

The development of the story falls into place quite easily but the twist on the generic disgraced soldier is what helps the story distinguish itself from the rest. A military man, killing militants with brutal means, runs from his military tribunal and ends on the streets for many years. Too come across a new start but tie loose ends before leaving is very different from the norm, especially with the ending which turns out to be a vital part in the plot.

In forms of cinematography, the movie was beautiful. With the perfect amount of lighting there was enough to compliment the gritty story with a variety of neon colours from rough clubs and the dark end of town. Angles and smooth camera movements that flow effortlessly with the focal points were unnoticeable, but also kept the focus on the mark. The framing was much the same. All of this mixed together turned a dingy alley into something far more menacing. Following this, you have the visuals. Special effects were good, apart from one incident at the end which was poorly edited and didn't look right on the background.

The characters and acting were good but some were a little too much. The main villain looked to be straight out of a Bond movie and his short time on screen didn't really fill you with hatred for the

character. Stathams performance was probably one of his best, not award winning but fairly believable and his fight scenes are executed in style and grace without being over the top *Cough* Transporter *Cough*. The rest of the cast were alright and didn't push anything to far in your face with the short amount of time they had on screen.

It's now 1:30AM and I think I should go to bed, so to end it, I shall call this movie a 7.5/10. It's story is a generic revenge thriller but with little depth to everything else that happens during Crazy Joe's reign and little exploratory investigations into the workings of his mind or the main villain. Plus, his almost instant rise into the Chinese Yakuza. A must see for all Statham fans and a must see for pretty much everyone else whose up for a bit of action with gritty details.