Advertisement

‘Redeemer’ a lame vigilante fight fest

Share via

“Redeemer” tells the story of a self-styled, perpetually hoodie-clad Chilean vigilante (Marko Zaror) whose routine for each mission includes playing Russian roulette and offering the used weapons at a church afterward.

“I want all of you to get on your knees and ask God for forgiveness,” he announces to enemies in Spanish. When his foes don’t comply, they meet particularly gruesome fates delivered by fists, knives, guns, broken bottles, baseball bats, combination pliers and boat propellers.

It would appear that director and co-writer Ernesto Díaz Espinoza has enjoyed a steady diet of trashy B-movies from the United States that are either adapted from comic books or deliberately ripped off from Hong Kong genre flicks.

Advertisement

Amid every gunfight in the film, both sides serendipitously drop their weapons as if on cue so the eponymous Redeemer and a random opponent can dance out the choreographed routines of punches, kicks and flips.

In between the desensitizing fight scenes, Redeemer’s protectees speculate on his tormented past and read religious symbolism into his actions, while the gringo aspiring drug lord (Noah Segan) racks the brains of his menacing crew for a moniker as cool as “Redeemer.” Unfortunately for English speakers, nothing here is lost in translation. Everything is exactly as lame as it sounds.

------------

“Redeemer.”

MPAA rating: None. In Spanish with subtitles.

Running time: 1 hour, 28 minutes.

Playing: Laemmle’s Music Hall 3, Beverly Hills. Also on VOD.

Advertisement