Dredd
Created in the 1970s on a diet of anti-heroes and Clint Eastwood’s
grizzled chin, Judge Joe Dredd patrols Mega City One dispensing justice as
judge, jury and sometimes overly creative executioner. With the first film
outing in 1995 an overstyled (to quote
Clint from Heartbreak Ridge) ‘clusterfuck’; this version had to distinguish
itself from that Jean Paul Gaultier festival to hook back the fans.
Urban, starring as the main man, managed to do this well
before release with the reveal that Dredd does in fact keep his helmet on. In a
society that seems to revel in what gets taken off it’s refreshing to see art
that values restraint, reserve and the beauty of understatement.
This reserve does not extend to the violence. This is Mega
City One as the spotty youth to which I belonged imagined it. It hurts the eye
to watch the misery and cheap life flow through the cracks in the radiation-stained
concrete one minute and experience the magical drug-filled bliss the next.
Through this world of pitiful contradiction Dredd strides
like a constant. The man’s presence is such that as his dialogue becomes ever
more truncated, his impact increases to the extent he can deliver one liners
without a word.
Alongside him is rookie judge Anderson (Thirlby): psychic
and damaged, she is a perfect counterpoint for Dredd. With an earnest desire to
‘make a difference’ the struggle to reconcile her vision of justice with the
absolutes of the world of 2000AD gives
the film a depth that takes it beyond actioner and into social and moral
commentary.
With a plot centred on Anderson’s first and possibly last
day on the job, her character is set directly against the deliciously deviant
Lena Hedley as drug lord Ma Ma. Almost a mirror to each other, both characters are
scarred by the nightmare future and pushed either side of the law.
Dredd occupies the centre: implacable, unreadable. Like Harry
Callaghan before him, if we ever asked him why he did what he did, day after day,
year after year, well, we’d never believe him if he told us.
9 out of 10
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