Review : Hummingbird

Hummingbird (Redemption) - Homeless and on the run from a military court martial, a damaged ex-special forces soldier navigating London's criminal underworld seizes an opportunity to assume another man's identity transforming into an avenging angel in the process.

An action crime drama with a lot of punch to it, is what basically sums up what you'd expect this film to be like, from what the plot has to offer the story has a lot of potential in terms of perspective of both how you can view it as an Action drama and how you can view it thinking outside the box on a larger scale and or style of film.

Jason Statham is the hard core man in this, he's the kind of man in this for the viewer to have confidence in. He sort of invites you in and makes you want to stay and watch, his character is interesting and supporting characters are good at showing emotional value of how they react to him which helps the audience in guidance of helping them understand the situation. It's been a while since we've had a drama like this which doesn't completely over do it sentimentality but in small areas just focusses on that slightly in order to connect with audience differently.

The more typical formulaic action films have a plot you can sum up on the back of a business card, a heroic maverick and as many a set piece stunts as the budget can afford. Thankfully, not every action film sticks to this template. The budget for this film wasn't very big so there are limitations shown throughout in the ways that you can do things, but considering the low production values the film provides it looks like it had a bigger budget when actually it didn't, and some of the action sequence are very fun and impressive and are really engaging to watch.

There are a few continuity errors that can be spotted a mile off, some smalls thing you can get away with but in the instance of the beginning of the film, Joey is beaten up, leaving his right arm injured and immobilized. But, when he reaches the rooftop, running away from one of the men who beat him, he crosses a sort of bridge leaning on his right arm while having his left arm immobilized. After this frame, he switches back to normal. doesn't make any clear sense at all, just a common error.

Other continuity errors are things being out of place so for example when Cristina takes pictures of Joey at the fountain and the restaurant she uses a Nikon D300s. However, the camera which is laying on the table in the apartment is a Nikon D70s. but these are just examples of small nit picks, the problems of making a film go on and on and on and more often than most directors make mistakes as they don't have their eye on the ball at all times, so I sympathise with the smaller problems and nit picks which can easily be pointed out, but just the smallest attention to detail out of place just makes it look inaccurate.

Some people who I've talked about this film to, often misunderstand. They think I dislike the film when in actual fact. I do really enjoy it. I don't think it's amazing, but then what film needs to be amazing or sets out to be amazing. You can act surprised any day, but what overall impression would it have on you watching it again? 

Taking that point into consideration, on watching it back again I remember liking it more in the cinema there was something about the big screen that made the impression of impact better for me in terms of hardening the mood, and the grit of it was more intense. I don't know, my feeling's differ over time. 7/10, overall very impressed. 

Next Review : The Iron Giant.