With the announcement earlier in the year of Bruce Willis’ retirement due to his diagnosis of Aphasia, it became clear why there had been a serious downturn in quality regarding his output. Willis' family admitted that the majority of the films that he had recently been appearing in were simply to earn enough cash so he could provide for his family in the future.
While he has clearly retired, audiences would be forgiven for thinking this isn't the case as countless films featuring the Hollywood veteran have been released in the wake of his announcement. This is down to the amount of films he already had in the can at the time of his retirement.
None of these films would ever be considered quality entertainment, with the majority of them not coming anywhere close to the quality Willis actioners of yesteryear. At least earlier DTV efforts like Brian A Miller’s The Prince (2014) and Steven C. Miller’s Marauders (2016) had an air of quality about them, recent releases such as Cosmic Sin (2021) and A Day to Die (2022) leave a lot to be desired.
The majority of these films all follow the same set of rules, featuring Willis heavily on the promotional material while he really only contributes a supporting role at best. With the previously mentioned The Prince and Marauders it wasn’t as much of an issue as you had him co-starring alongside quality actors like Jason Patric and Chris Meloni, but it has increasingly become an issue with his more recent films when the leading roles are given to such names as Cody Kearsley and Jesse Metcalfe.
Earlier in the year, director Edward Drake brought us another to add to the seemingly endless list of under par Willis DTV action films. Detective Knight: Rogue (2022) was only marginally better than some of the previous films Willis had appeared in the past few years, with it still having many of the same issues that plagued his poorest efforts.
In its favour, it had a decent performance from genre stalwart Michael Eklund and a decent supporting turn from Willis’ old pal Johnny Messner managing to at least keep things interesting, even if de facto lead Beau Mirchoff struggled to carry the film.
Director Edward Drake did try to keep things interesting with some nice directorial flourishes, but these weren’t enough to overcome the clear limitations of the film, which unfortunately weren’t just down to the films low budget.
The most surprising aspect of Detective Knight: Rogue was that it was merely the first part of a trilogy, with the ensuing sequels already shot and due for release. Now, I can’t say the finale of the first film really left me eager to see where the filmmakers would take the further adventures of Detective Knight, but even so, I had a little curiosity to see how they would follow it up.
This brings us to Detective Knight: Redemption (2022), which picks up not long after the events of the first movie, with Detective Knight (Bruce Willis) in prison for Murder. Coincidentally, he is sharing the same prison with Casey Rhodes (Beau Mirchoff) and Mercer (Corey Large), who he had tried to bring down previously.
Knight is willing to his time, but his stay in prison is interrupted after crazed criminal “The Christmas Bomber” stages a ruthless prison break. While Casey and Mercer decide to join the Bomber and break out, Knight decides to stay behind. Doing so regains him a modicum of trust with Police Chief Anita Shea (Miranda Edwards), who grants him his release from Prison if he will capture “The Christmas Bomber”.
With “The Christmas Bomber” planning a major bank heist, it’s up to Knight to stop him before he is able to carry it out. The only assistance he has is his partner Fitzgerald (Lochlyn Munro) and an unwilling Casey.
By this point in his career, director Edward Drake is an old hand at directing Bruce Willis DTV movies. This marks the sixth Willis film he has directed in the past two years, with another on the way. This is before taking into consideration those Willis films he has also had a hand in writing and producing. Between him and producer Corey Large (who also stars), I seriously wonder who is going to star in their films going forward now that Willis has retired.
As mentioned, Drake brought a few stylistic touches to the first film that at least made it stand out from the crowd. Also, it had quite a well created shootout during its runtime, taking place around an old garage on a cold snowy night. It was just a shame there wasn’t more like this that would have made the film a standout.
Sadly, Redemption has less of these stylistic flourishes, with the completed film being an extremely cheap looking affair. It’s unclear if it’s because of the film being low budget or simply lazy filmmaking. Now I understand there are certain issues that are probably unavoidable due to Willis' health issues, with the need for stand in’s and voice overs being heavily used. But, do they have to be so noticeable?
The problems can’t all be blamed on Willis. There is poor ADR dubbing present in a number of scenes that don’t even involve his character. The first film also had this issue. The poor sound isn’t relegated to the characters voices, with the sound effects being poorly created. In one scene it’s as if they forgot to even add the noise of gunfire.
I could forgive some of these limitations if the action at least made up for them, but even then this is extremely underwhelming. It is poorly choreographed, with possibly the poorest use of digital gunfire and blood that I have seen to date. I have honestly seen teenagers do better visual effects on their mobile phones. It doesn’t help that the lighting in some of the action makes it unclear what is happening on screen.
It is obvious Edward Drake has taken inspiration from many of Hollywood’s more popular crime thrillers. Basing his story during the Christmas period obviously gives nostalgic feelings for Willis’ most iconic action movie Die Hard (1988). Whilst setting Redemption at Christmas may have seemed a good idea on paper, all it does when watching the film is make you think how much better your time would be spent watching Die Hard.
The character development is kept to a bare minimum, with everyone being a character archetype, with events and dialogue all boiling down to cliche. The villains like to go on long rants about their political agenda and how they are trying to create a new world order, rather than admit to being the thieves that they are. If you’re thinking this all sounds vaguely familiar, I’m pretty sure that Drake and co-writer Corey Large went through their Die Hard tick list when writing the film.
When it comes to Willis, as expected, he is once again a supporting player even if he is the title character. He does get slightly more screen time than other recent releases, but he has very little in the way of dialogue. In fact, it is 26 minutes before he even utters a word. Even when he does deliver his lines, it is clear his heart isn’t really in it. It’s not that Willis is terrible, but he is more here for his presence than his performance.
Once again, most of the focus is given to Beau Mirchoff’s Casey. Like the first film, he is an extremely bland character that I found hard to care about. It never becomes really clear why “The Christmas Bomber” want’s him around, as he adds next to nothing to the team.
Ex Diet Coke salesman Paul Johansson adds some value with an especially hammy performance as SPOILER ALERT “The Christmas Bomber”. Espousing his religious beliefs to his team, and contradicting himself at every turn. He at least poses more of a physical threat as the first film’s villain Michael Eklund.
Speaking of physical threat, I did expect the involvement of WWE wrestler Seth Rollins to at least lead to a decent fight scene. Credited under his real name Colby Lopez, his one fight scene with Mirchoff is so laughable that it made me wonder why Lopez was even involved.
Surprisingly, the best actor in the film is Lochlyn Munro. I don’t mean to do the actor a disservice, as he has always been a likeable performer. I remember him all the way back in Issac Florentine’s High Voltage (1997), a DTV actioner that easily shows how underpar something like Detective Knight: Redemption truly is. Munro is only in a handful of scenes, but is certainly more engaging than any of the leads.
It may seem like I am picking on the film, but even when going into a film with lowered expectations I still always hope for the best. I was willing to give Detective Knight: Redemption the benefit of the doubt, but there is very little here that would make me recommend it to others.
Rating: 1.5
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