“Dredd 3D”

Despite his reputation as a purveyor of cerebral comic-book fare, Christopher Nolan didn’t show much interest in exploring the fascistic implications of his three Batman films. The protagonist — a vigilante dispenser-of-justice dedicated to defending the status quo — experienced a few obligatory moments of uncertainty, but his judgment and rectitude were never really in question; he was, categorically, a hero. This wouldn’t have been an issue if the films were just breezy entertainments — nothing wrong with a bit of right-wing fantasy now and then — but they were absurdly solemn and self-important. Worse, Nolan didn’t just ignore the moral implications, he flouted them, fashioning blockbuster odes to the art of demagoguery. (His painful thesis-statement dialogue — “People need dramatic examples to shake them out of apathy”; “You need to become an idea!” — was explicitly about winning over the populace by manufacturing myth, a move right out of the neocon playbook.)

The new Dredd 3D, which was shepherded to the screen by novelist and screenwriter Alex Garland (The Beach, 28 Days Later), is also about a one-man dispenser-of-justice, but it serves as a handy rejoinder to the Batman films on two counts: it actually examines its own fascistic underpinnings, and it does so without any of Nolan’s ponderousness. Dredd stars Karl Urban as the stoic Judge Dredd, top law enforcer of the sprawling, post-apocalyptic Mega City One. Crime being highly pervasive in Dredd’s grimy future-world, he and his fellow beat cops — all called “judges” — are authorized to carry out sentencing on the spot. This usually means prison sentencing, but other times it means a bullet to the head.

If this sounds familiar, note that this is the second big-screen take on a 35-year-old British comic book character, the first being a 1995 Sylvester Stallone vehicle that reportedly stunk to high heaven. In that film, Dredd was given a wisecracking sidekick played by Rob Schneider. In this one, he’s given a reticent rookie partner, Judge Anderson (Olivia Thirlby). Before meeting Anderson, Dredd is told she may not be cut out for judge work, having received a failing grade at the academy. The only reason she’s being promoted to the field is that she has potentially useful psychic abilities. Though Dredd and all the other judges wear decidedly unfriendly-looking helmets that conceal their faces, Anderson has to go helmet-less, ostensibly so that her powers remain unobstructed. The actual reason, of course, is that she’s a pretty blonde whom the largely male audience wants to look at. But there’s also a solid thematic rationale: Dredd’s unseeing countenance suggests cold, blind justice, whereas Anderson’s exposed features suggest a more complex humanity. The movie works off the tension created between the two.

The pleasingly compact story starts out as a routine police call: Dredd and Anderson visit the massive, crime-ridden residential tower known as Peach Trees to investigate a triple homicide. While there, they discover that the mob boss running the place, Ma Ma (Lena Headey), is responsible for the sale and manufacture of a highly dangerous new drug called Slo-mo, which slows the perception of time to a near stand-still (and affords gifted cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle plenty of opportunities for nifty slow-motion effects.) Before Dredd and Anderson can call for reinforcements, Ma Ma orders the tower shut down, trapping them inside and forcing them to play a deadly game of cat-and-mouse with her henchmen.

As Dredd, the New Zealand actor Karl Urban (who I was totally confusing with country singer Keith Urban until a visit to IMDb straightened me out) maintains just the right stolid tone throughout. His character isn’t a self-righteous Dirty Harry-style badass, he’s just firmly by-the-book, and we aren’t meant to like him or dislike him. He doesn’t even grow or change over the course of the movie, which is fine because we don’t need him to — our identification rests entirely with his inexperienced young partner. If Dredd represents certainty, Anderson represents doubt, her ability to read minds giving her a much more nuanced understanding of the people she’s supposed to be “sentencing” than Dredd is capable of. Though the two trust and even respect one another, their philosophical differences become more pronounced over the course of the movie, and Thirlby (Juno) does a good, subtle job of conveying her character’s blooming awareness.

I’m only speculating, but the clash between Anderson and Dredd may mirror Garland’s relationship with director Pete Travis (Vantage Point). Garland brought Travis onto the project late in the game as a director-for-hire, and there were many reports of contention between the two on-set. After shooting was completed, Travis was removed from the project, leaving Garland in charge of the final edit. Whatever the issues between them, there’s a palpable (and at least semi-deliberate) tension between the thoughtful screenplay and Travis’s ulta-slick, ultra-violent style. If you wanted to be uncharitable, you could say the movie is both schizo and hypocritical, condemning vigilante justice on one hand and celebrating it on the other. But I’ve always felt the liveliest B-movies thrive on exactly this sort of unresolved quality. For my money, Dredd contains just the right proportion of tawdry thrills and subtle smarts.

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