Welcome back to Movie Recaps. Today I will show you an action,
crime, sci-fi film from 2012, titled Dredd. Spoilers ahead! Watch out and take care.
In the not too distant future, the USA has become a dystopian wasteland, and stretching from Boston
to Washington DC there is a city called Mega-City One, walled off from the radiation of the desert.
There are eight hundred million residents living in mega blocks, almost never going outside because
they fear the tremendous violence and brutality that terrorize the streets. The only ones capable
of maintaining some kind of order are the Judges, an elite group of urban police that has been given
the duties of judge, jury, and executioner. They also have access to advanced weaponry,
like guns that can read your DNA and change the type of bullets they're loaded with on the spot.
Dredd is one of these judges, currently driving his bike through the highway to
chase three suspects in a van. These men are under the influence of Slo-mo, a new and very addictive
narcotic that reduces the user's perception of time, which causes their driving to be rather
erratic. When they realize a Judge is following them, one of them opens fire but misses every
shot, and the driver decides to leave the highway and take a normal street, hitting and killing
a pedestrian in the process. Now that they've gone from suspects to actual murderers, Dredd is
allowed to fire back, so he shoots the van's tires and makes it fall over in front of a mega block.
When he comes closer to check the damage, he finds only two bodies in the van before hearing gunshots
coming from inside the block. Dredd follows a trail of bodies left by the criminal until he
finds him pointing his gun at a hostage, who he will kill if he's not allowed to walk out.
The deal that Dredd offers him doesn't sound very good: it's just jail without parole,
but the truth is, if he doesn't comply, the result would be worse, he'd be sentenced to death.
Since the criminal doesn't accept the deal, Dredd shoots a flare bullet right into his mouth.
When Dredd returns to headquarters, the Chief Judge introduces him to Cassandra Anderson,
a twenty-one-year-old woman that was born in a block near the radiation wall.
She's a mutant with the most powerful psychic powers they've ever encountered,
which is why she's being given the chance to be a new recruit even if she didn't
pass the tests by merely three points. It's also why she doesn't wear a Judge helmet,
it gets in the way of her special abilities. Dredd's assignment is to take her out with
him for one day in the field and assess her performance to decide her future.
Meanwhile, in a block called Peach Trees, there is Madeline Madrigal, better known as Ma-ma,
a former call-girl turned drug pusher. Her bath is interrupted by her men Caleb and Kay,
who have brought her three drug dealers that have been selling another pusher's products
on Ma-ma's levels. As a punishment, she orders her men to skin them alive,
pump so Slow-mo in them, and then throw them over the balcony.
After going through the basic rules, Dredd allows Anderson to use her best judgment to choose their
first case since they can only help with six percent of the seventeen thousand serious crimes
that are reported every day. Anderson chooses the triple homicide at Peach Trees, and on their way
there, she tells Dredd she wants to be a Judge because she wants to make a difference - she grew
up in a mega block and knows there are some good people inside. Dredd thinks this is admirable.
When they arrive at the crime scene, they meet TJ, the block's medic, who gets them blood samples
from the bodies so they can possibly identify them. This proves to be a success, the system
tells them all three bodies belong to small-perps, junkies with no gang affiliation. Anderson reaches
the conclusion this kind of death can only mean someone is trying to send a message and TJ agrees,
telling them about Ma-ma and her clan. Some time ago, she took over a client's drug business and
gained control of the block by using extreme violence against the other gangs. Nobody ever
stopped her because Judges never stop by a block like Peach Trees, which is mostly slums.
TJ allows them to use his computer and they discover the perp's address is on floor
thirty-nine, so they go there to investigate. When they find the right apartment, they blow
the door up with a small explosive and open fire on the people inside until they all surrender.
This leaves Anderson quite shaken, since it's her first time killing. She still continues to work
efficiently, though, and when she handcuffs Kay, her powers let her see his mind and discover he is
the murderer they're looking for. But since she's only ninety-nine percent sure, this isn't enough
to execute him yet, so Dredd decides to take him back to headquarters with them for interrogation.
All this is seen on the security cameras by Ma-ma's hacker, and when he tells her about it,
she comes up with a plan to stop the Judges from leaving. Caleb and some
other gang members seize the tower's security control room after killing
the guards and connect a special router to the computer, which allows the hacker
to make contact with Security Control and, pretending to be a guard himself,
ask permission to turn on the def-con system under the excuse they're just running some tests.
By the time Dredd, Anderson, and Kay make it back to the ground floor it's too late:
the hacker has obtained the code to activate the "war protocol" and
now the block is shutting down every door and window. Next, Ma-ma talks to the entire block,
telling them she'll keep the building under lockdown until the Judges are dead.
Clan members should grab their weapons and get on chasing, and the rest of the people
should stay inside and not interfere - if anyone helps the Judges, Ma-ma will kill them as well.
Dredd tries to contact headquarters to report their situation,
but their communicators aren't working because of the shielding that now covers the building.
They decide they should wait at the med-center, and on their way there, the clan members already
start chasing them. They easily shoot them after distracting them with a gas bomb and get
to ride the elevator to their destination, which is also being protected by thugs.
Dredd offers them a chance to surrender without violence, but since the criminals turn it down, he
throws a stun grenade before he and Anderson move in and kill them as well. Sadly, TJ doesn't allow
them to enter the med-center with him, because as a medical facility he's supposed to stay neutral.
Accepting they'll have to go cover from now on, Anderson and Dredd
switch their weapons to silencer mode, and Anderson wonders if Kay isn't a liability,
but Dredd points out they can't just cut loose the prime suspect of a murder investigation.
Both Judges drag Kay with them as they begin to sneak around the hallways, and when they're
about to be found by some clan members, Anderson uses her powers to find out the name of one of
the tenants and mentions it when she rings the bell to convince the person to let them inside.
The three of them hide inside this innocent woman's apartment until the thugs are gone,
and before they leave, the tenant promises she won't raise the alarm because she doesn't
want them to kill more people. To prove she's being honest, she tells them about the service
elevator near here, which has a sign that says it's broken but it isn't entirely true:
it actually works if you choose a level above seventy-five. As the trio leaves the apartment,
Anderson sees a picture and uses her power to confirm her fears: the woman's husband and
father of her child is one of the guys she killed early. This news leaves her feeling quite uneasy.
Ma-ma's hacker is following the group using the security cameras, and when they make it to floor
seventy-six, he follows Ma-ma's orders and seals the corridors in order to trap them on that floor.
Dredd quickly catches on to what's going on and shoots the camera near them before
ordering Anderson to take Kay to the elevator lobby and wait there while he investigates.
While Dredd goes down the hallway, Kay takes advantage of the fact he's alone with Anderson
now and tries to get on her nerves by telling her about the things they've done to young girls
in the past, sending her mental images of him touching her inappropriately,
and teasing her for being a pretty mutant, since they usually are deformed.
But Anderson doesn't allow him to distract her and hits him to shut him up.
In the meantime, Dredd makes it to the balcony and finds Ma-ma on the opposite
side together with her men and huge rotary cannons capable of ripping through the walls.
She doesn't hesitate to open fire on him without caring about all the residents she
kills while trying to get Dredd, who wastes no time in running back to the lobby with
Anderson. When he notices Ma-ma's cannon bullets are also hitting the outer wall,
he shoots a high-ex bullet at it and opens a hole in it that allows the three of them to escape
without being noticed because the explosions have also destroyed the security cameras.
Now they're outside, their communicators are working again, so Dredd calls for reinforcements
before taking Anderson and Kay back inside, since if they stay out on that little roof,
they wouldn't have anywhere to run to when found. Among the smoke and the debris, they come across
Ma-ma's men, who are looking for the Judges' bodies. Dredd shoots them all except for Caleb,
who he takes to the balcony and throws over the edge for Ma-ma to see it as a message.
Afterward, he violently drags Kay into a classroom and starts beating him up.
Dredd finds it suspicious that Ma-ma is willing to kill so many residents
and destroy an entire floor just to get rid of two Judges, which must mean her actual
objective is to save Kay from interrogation because he knows important information.
If Dredd had killed Kay when they first found him, Ma-ma would've let them go.
Since Kay still won't talk, Anderson cuts in and asks Dredd to let her do this with her powers.
She makes herself appear inside Kay's head, so he tries to scare her away by imagining
shocking scenarios of them being intimate, but she counters them with some violent imagery of
Ma-ma's teeth near his groin. Now his defenses are down, she's able to read his mind properly
and find out the details behind Ma-ma's operation: it turns out Peach Trees is
the center of Slo-Mo production and distribution, and they're planning to take over the whole city.
At that moment, more Judges arrive outside the building. While being threatened with
a knife by Ma-ma, the hacker pretends to be a security guard and tells them their
systems went down while they were running the tests because of a fire on level seventy-six.
When the Judges notice the smoke coming from that floor, they believe the story.
Meanwhile, Dredd and Anderson are discussing their options. Anderson thinks they should either run or
hide, but Dredd thinks they should head straight for Ma-ma and attack. Anderson disagrees and says
they should wait for backup for the odds to be back in their favor, so Dredd gives in for now,
trusting her psychic powers. After they leave the room with Kay, they are ambushed by two teenagers
with guns they are too nervous to use. Since Dredd is now distracted by them, Kay takes the chance
to jump on Anderson and grab her gun to capture her, pulling her with him into the elevator while
Dredd stuns the kids that have finally dared to shoot when they got scared by Kay's sudden moves.
Anderson is taken to Ma-Ma's base on the top floor, where all her henchmen are eager to torture
her. She's saved by Ma-ma herself, who orders everyone not to touch her yet before scolding
and punching Kay for failing to kill the Judges or himself - she would kill him now if she hadn't
lost so many men already today. Knowing that the department of justice will come sooner or later
to get their Judges, Ma-ma wants to make it all look like a simple bust that went wrong, so she
forbids everyone to do anything to Anderson that isn't a bunch of bullets to the head and chest.
While the thugs take Anderson away, the hacker comes to tell Ma-ma that Dredd has reached a
terminal and intends to talk to the entire building through the speakers like she did.
He could easily shut him down but they decide against it because this way,
they can track down his location. Dredd's message is very simple: he reminds everyone
that Ma-ma isn't the law, he is, and anyone that helps her will be arrested as an accomplice.
The message may be short but it still gives the hacker enough time to find Dredd only ten floors
under them, so Ma-ma sends more men after him. However, when they arrive at the terminal, they
discover a body Dredd left inside as a decoy, and he actually is on the other side of the balcony,
far enough to shoot a flare at them that kills them all with fire.
Running out of options, Ma-ma says to call 911, which means they are calling in for four corrupt
Judges that accept to work for her in exchange for one million credits. The hacker opens the door for
them and as soon as they get inside, the Judges start making up a story about Dredd and Anderson
triggering a turf war and dying in the pursuit of duty. TJ sees them and hears what they are saying,
so he approaches them to tell them what actually happened, but they just shoot him in response.
After meeting with Ma-ma and making a deal with her, the Judges split to find Dredd.
The first one to do it is Chan, who plays pretend and tells Dredd he's his backup to distract him.
Dredd, however, becomes suspicious that he doesn't ask about Anderson's status,
and as soon as he points that out, the men begin to fight hand-to-hand.
Chan overpowers Dredd for a short moment, but Dredd comes through and flips their positions,
killing Chan and leaving the body on the floor for the other Judges to find him.
Meanwhile, Kay grabs Anderson's gun to kill her, but when the gun's sensor doesn't find her DNA,
it explodes and takes his hand off. Anderson wastes no time and knocks Kay out before he
can react, then escapes the room, killing all the henchmen she finds along the way. A moment later,
when Ma-ma finds Kay's body, Judge Kaplan offers herself to go after Anderson and kill her.
Her plan doesn't work, though, because when she finds Anderson, she doesn't believe the backup
lie thanks to her reading her mind. Anderson doesn't hesitate to kill Kaplan on the spot.
Dredd walks inside the Slo-mo lab and shoots a stray bullet to scare all the workers away. Judges
Lex and Alvarez arrive then and open fire after talking a bit about a Judge's morals, Dredd shoots
them in return but only manages to kill Alvarez before he runs out of ammunition. Lex comes closer
and wounds Dredd on the side of his stomach, but when he's about to finish him off, Dredd distracts
him by telling him to wait, giving Anderson time to sneak behind Lex and killing him with her gun.
Dredd uses some emergency supplies from his utility belt to patch up his wounds and steals
Lex's gun before he and Anderson go after Ma-ma. They find the hacker first, who desperately shares
some information so Dredd won't kill him. Ma-ma is in her private quarters, which is behind
ten inches of steel. To enter they'll need a combination, and Anderson gets it out of his mind
by using her powers. In the process of reading his mind, she also learns the hacker has always been
pray for Ma-ma, only working for her because she's got him under torture. This makes Anderson decide
to let him go, which Dredd doesn't approve of because he is a criminal that should be punished.
Anderson corrects him and tells him the poor guy is a victim, not a perp.
The duo hurries to the last floor, uses the hacker's code to get in,
and kills every henchman they can find before they finally make it to Ma-ma,
who has put a strange glowing contraption on her wrist. There are thugs in her room as well,
and while they do manage to kill them, one of them hurts Anderson in the process.
Ma-ma tells Dredd she knew the Judges could find her place someday, so she has rigged
the entire level with enough explosives to take out the top fifty stories, which would fall on
and destroy all the floors under them as well. The detonator is the contraption on her wrist,
which is a transmitter connected to her heartbeat: if she dies, the building blows up.
Dredd doesn't seem too bothered by the news, though.
He still shoots Ma-ma on her stomach then points out they're one kilometer above ground,
so he's willing to test the transmitter's range. After grabbing a bottle of Slo-mo and forcing
Ma-ma to inhale it, he grabs her by her neck and throws her down the atrium, dying when her
body hits the ground floor, too far away from the explosives for the transmitter to activate them.
Hours later, the block's shielding finally opens and the department of justice arrives
with plenty of backup. When Dredd tells Anderson her assessment is over, she doesn't say a word,
she simply gives him back her badge before leaving, thinking she's failed.
However, when the Chief Judge comes over and asks Dredd about her, he says she's a pass.