DREDD

UK, 2012,
Karl Urban, Lena Headey, Olivia Thirlby.
Directed by Pete Travis.

A grim future: 80,000,000 people crammed into the space from Boston to New York, high rise ugliness, a department of justice that controls the behaviour with ‘Big Brother and Sister’ screens and sends Judges to administer justice, even executions. Drug thuggery is rife.

This is really a short story at feature film length. One judge goes to a trouble area, accompanied by a recruit who is being assessed. However, she has the power to see into people’s minds. Which comes in very handily at various steps in their mission. The villain is Ma-Ma? (Lena Headey) who controls the drug traffic in her high rise and beyond.

The whole drama is the Judge and his offsider detecting the villains, confronting the villains, doing violence on the villains, executing the villains and so, despite the odds and being outnumbered and often outgunned, they succeed in their mission.

Filmed in South Africa, the film boasts futuristic sets and a lot of action, comic-book style.

Karl Urban is the judge, Judge Dredd. It won’t do much for his visual recognition in his career as he is heavily masked, only mouth and jutting and fixed jaw being visible. It doesn’t give him as much exposure as Sylvester Stallone had in the previous film, Judge Dredd.

A film designed solely for aficionados of graphic novel action.