Detective Knight: Redemption

Script seems written by someone who has never written a movie script before in their life. Nothing is appealing or entertaining at all in this repellant waste of EVERYONE'S time. It's not Bruce's fault. His scenes could have been performed by an automaton. The 'effects' even suck, from the first gun shot, where the victim's blood squirt happens BEFORE the trigger is pulled. Music must have been free. It's ultra -generic and utterly blows. And the whole premise of the movie was a stupid idea to begin with. Shame on EVERYONE involved with the 'making' of this embarrassment, except Bruce, who I feel sorry for.

Now, I haven't seen the 2022 movie "Detective Knight: Rogue", so I don't know what I missed out on here. But I have to say that the 2022 "Detective Knight: Redemption" felt like a stand-alone movie, so I guess it wasn't wholly and fully necessary to have seen the other movie first.

When I sat down to watch "Detective Knight: Redemption", I have to say that I wasn't exactly harboring a lot of expectations to the movie, since the endless stream of Bruce Willis movies these past few years have been dubious at best.

But still, since I hadn't already seen "Detective Knight: Redemption", and had the chance to do so, of course I did.

I will say that writers Edward Drake and Corey Lange put together a fair enough script and storyline for the movie. It was actually much better than I had initially feared it to be, so it was an enjoyable action thriller. Sure, this wasn't top of the line, but it proved to be enjoyable and entertaining, and isn't that what movies are all about?

It wasn't because of Bruce Willis that the movie turned out good, because he wasn't on the screen for that long really. Nay, the movie was made watchable by Paul Johansson (playing Ricky Conlan). He really carried the movie quite well.

There is a good amount of action in the movie, and that definitely helped to keep the movie afloat.

The special effects, and by that I mean the blood spray when bullets hit people, was just laughably bad. Amazing how such horrible CGI can get green-lighted.

All in all, then director Edward Drake put together a watchable movie. Not that it is a movie that I will ever return to again, but it provided enough entertainment for a single viewing.

My rating of "Detective Knight: Redemption" lands on a five out of ten stars.

Bruce Willis has only got a small supporting role, but he is still THE MAN. He is has gotta battle a group of vicious bankrobbers this time around...

Let us not forget that Bruce is suffering from a severe neurological disease which affects his voice and muscles. Considering all that, he still does a heck of a job.

I have seen ALL Bruce Willis' movies and I would recommend this movie, but only for the true Bruce Willis fans, who wanna watch all his latest work, no matter what.

This movie is actually not that bad. Seriously, I am being honest. It is a tough action B-movie. Look upon it as a B-movie and you'll have an enjoyable watch. Expect another Die Hard and you'll be severely disappointed though...

Lots of shootouts. Lots of them. And they are pretty decent shootouts. Lots of oneliners by Bruce. Pretty good photography and editing. The soundscore is okay.

All in all not bad, considering Bruce Willis is in his last years of his life and fighting a severe neurological disease.

At an (excrucially) important sidenote, let us not forget WHY we are watching Bruce Willis movies to begin with. We watch Bruce Willis movies because of DIE HARD (1988). THE ONE AND ONLY BIGGEST ACTION AMERICAN ACTION CLASSIC OF THE CENTURY.

This classic is still standing strong after more than 30 years. Millions of people still REwatch it during every Christmas holiday. Recently a petition was launched to rename Nakatomi Plaza into DIE HARD plaza.

A life time achievement award for Bruce Willis is in the making as well, so I have heard...

DIE HARD (1988) NEVER DIES but is still ALIVE AND KICKING in 2022. Let's celebrate that.

James Knight (Bruce Willis) is no longer a cop after the events of the first movie. He is in jail with Casey Rhodes (Beau Mirchoff) as they wait for their trial. A Christmas-themed bank robbery gang led by evil Santa Ricky Conlan (Paul Johansson) is hounding the city.

The first movie is almost passable. I really like Beau Mirchoff in that one. He is able to do the heavy lifting in place of Bruce. Bruce is not doing well. I am surprised to see that he did so many movies in his last year. I am shocked that he did a trilogy of these movies. This one struggles mightily as he becomes more the lead character again. He cannot lead anything at this point in his illness. For some reason, this one turns into a comic book story. They're trying to make evil Santa into a Joker-like figure. It's really bad.

By now we all know the situation. Bruce Willis is in bad health and struggling with early onset dementia. These direct to streaming films are built around him. Rarely has it been more obvious than here. Entire scenes go without him saying a word and the other actors exposition dumping what should have been his dialogue.

While the first Detective Knight film built up a semi interesting villain and a decent motivation for Willis, this one is almost incoherent. The criminal from the first movie is back, and we're supposed to root for him, but his character makes one dumb decision after the next, and for a protagonist, he's not proactive enough.

Willis is barely in it. His former partner is in a wheel chair and all of his scenes should have been Willis's, but they needed someone who can remember their lines.

One major flaw is the film's villain. After a very strong opening scene which actually had me hyped, the villain turns into a cliché crazy preacher guy who wants to topple the system. Seen and heard it all before. As the film goes on, he becomes more and more ridiculous, and so does the motivation of others to follow him. The actor does his best with the role, but it's very badly written. He's the only actor who really puts in an effort. Everyone else sleepwalks through their roles.

The ambient score is effective at first but gets on your nerves after a while, as does the terrible color grading. The movie is way too dark and saturated. The shot blocking isn't bad, but for some reason they decide to shine red and green lights on the actors nonstop. The finale then gets AvP Requiem bad in terms of color grading. It's so dark you can barely make out what's what.

I will say that the opening scene and some of the bank robberies are quite intense, and the chanting is quite effective at building tension.

A pity. If you're looking for one of Bruce's last films, watch Paradise City, which was actually pretty decent.