Detective Knight: Redemption

I can only assume that before his announcement that he was retiring from the film industry, (Bruce) Willis must have worked overtime to churn out a lot of films before hanging up his guns etc. I didn't immediately notice the following (but it dropped everything into place with the styling of the films unfurling) that the script parts for Bruce were kept very limited -and short- which, would assist greatly in his ability to remember his lines etc; his debilitating sickness makes it hard for him in this subject matter.. As a prequel to the first film its a no go in that it is boringly tame and nothing of value to make it an unforgettable film.

If you saw part 1 then watch this part2 to complete your interest!

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.

"I'm gonna shove a Christmas tree up your ass and set it on fire"

Detective Knight: Redemption is directed by Edward Drake and stars Bruce Willis, Paul Johansson, Lochlyn Munro and Beau Mirchoff. My expectations were at ground level going into this since this is a sequel to Detective Knight: Rouge which in it of itself was not a good movie. Also now knowing everything we know about Bruce Willis (and considering this was one of the last movies he filmed before his retirement) I expected this to be dreadful to watch. Surprisingly to me it wasn't. This is kind of fun to watch in a guilty pleasure sort of way.

Detective Knight: Redemption isn't awful but it's not great either. The storyline here is way less convoluted than Rouge. It seems like everyone here for the most part was actually trying to make a competent movie. This is by far the best movie Edward Drake has directed (although if you look at his IMDB page that's not a hard accomplishment) Paul Johansson is easily the best part of this movie and he makes it work for the most part by cheesing it up to 11. It was also nice to see Lochlyn Munro have a bigger role here than the first even if he's stuck in a wheelchair. Bruce Willis disappears for long stretches of time here and he barley has any dialogue, his voice is dubbed in some spots and I don't think he shares a scene with most of the other actors in this movie. But that's to be expected at this point with the state he's in.

Towards the end of this movie it did put a smirk on my face to see Bruce Willis actually smiling and delivering witty dialogue. It was a quick and small glimpse of the charismatic movie star we all fell in love with in the first place.

Detective Knight: Independence is supposed to release in January. I hope the upward trend for this trilogy continues so the last thing on Willis' IMDB page doesn't have a 3.8 next to it.

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.

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.