Redemption Day movie review

In theaters January 8, 20201 and Video On Demand

RATING: R

LENGTH: 1 hour 39 minutes

Movie Review Mom GRADE: D+ for disappointing

IN A NUTSHELL:

This action-thriller is the directorial debut by Hicham Hajji. It looked promising but it falls below the bar and will be remembered as one of those disappointing January movies. Hajji is from Morocco, so you would think he would want to show a rich tapestry of his area of the world, revealing the complicated, layered political and religious issues of the day, but the movie is very superficial and extremely cliched. The director has rounded up some talented actors but doesn’t give them a quality script to work with.

TIPS FOR PARENTS:

You see a topless guy twice.
People in perilous situations.
Violence with guns and other means.
Lots of French and Arabic are spoken without subtitles.
Profanity, including F-bombs
Illustration of Muslims in prayer

THEMES:

The cost of American freedom
Love, marriage, family
Sacrifice
Redemption (sort of)
Tenacity
Greed

THINGS I LIKED:

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation: The Complete Series fans will be thrilled to see Gary Dourdan in a leading role. He flexes his impressive muscles, bares his chest a couple of times, and broods over past events, suggesting a deep character, but the script simply doesn’t give him much to work with.
Serinda Swan is beautiful and a pleasure to watch.
It’s super sweet how fiercely the husband and wife love each other and pronounce their feelings to others about the fact. They don’t just say they love each other, but they show it by their actions and sacrifices. I loved it when the husband actually turned off the TV when his wife called! Impressive!
Other talented cast members include Martin Donovan, Ernie Hudson (who was underutilized), and Robert Knepper (who strangely appears to be the same character in the popular TV show Prison Break: The Complete Series – Seasons 1-5 [Blu-ray] [Region Free]).
You get to go to Morocco and see the beautiful country.
There are some nice cinematic vistas by Philip Lozano with lots of interesting aerial scenes.
There are some moments of espionage and diplomacy, although this definitely isn’t a spy movie.

THINGS I DIDN’T LIKE:

Andy Garcia has been showing up in several shoddy films recently. What’s that all about? Oh yeah…money.
Some terrible editing moments.
Super fake special effects
The musical score by Sacha Chaban suggests intense drama and action, yet what you’re seeing on the screen doesn’t measure up. The lack of a musical score in certain scenes was also odd.
Did anyone feel uncomfortable when the dad went to sleep in the same bed as his teenage daughter?
Some of the acting is really awful. The scene with the diplomats sitting at the table was laughably bad.
Most of the stunt work is really terrible. A lot of the action scenes take place at night, making it hard to see what’s going on. It reminded me of the bad action sequence with Wonder Woman and Cheetah that seemed to be filmed at night in an attempt to hide how bad it was.
Some shaky-cam action moments appeared out of nowhere and didn’t match the style of the rest of the film.
Because of the movie’s title of Redemption Day, I thought there would be some deeper themes about redemption, forgiveness, or even religion. The protagonist hadn’t done anything wrong that he needed to be redeemed for, so the title doesn’t seem fitting. There is a scene where he goes to prayer with other Muslims but we’re not sure if he was pretending or if that was his true faith.
In the very first scene of the movie, the camera follows the protagonist around, making it look like a first-person shooter video game. There’s another scene much later on that reminded me of a video game my kids used to play called Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell – Xbox, but the rest of the movie isn’t filmed in that style at all.
It ends with a tease for a sequel. Is that something anyone wants?
Filled with cliched characters and a plot we’ve seen many, many times.
The villains are super generic and paper-thin, feeling more like cartoon characters.
The awkward pacing is frustrating.
Super predictable.
Some of the scenes go on way too long while others are cut too short. It’s as if the director didn’t quite know what kind of movie this was or when to yell, “Cut!”

INTERESTING LINES:

“I love my job. I just love you more.” – Kate Paxton (Serinda Swan)
‘I love this woman more than anything in this world. I’ll do whatever it takes.” – Brad Paxton (Gary Dourdan)
“My cause is worthy of my death.” – Brad Paxton (Gary Dourdan)