Summary

Writer/director Steven Knight's Redemption stars Jason Statham as a British Special Forces veteran named Smith who has fallen on very hard times. He's an alcoholic homeless man huddling inside a box on a dingy London alley with a fellow homeless woman when a couple of criminals start harassing the junkies and the destitute. He reverts to his training, subdues the baddies, and makes a run for it, ending up in the home of a wealthy creative type who happens to be in New York for the next eight months. Smith movies in, cleans himself up, and gets a job as a toughman for a local Asian gangster. Haunted by horrific acts he committed while serving in Afghanistan, he spends much of the money he makes now to help fund a local soup kitchen run by Sister Cristina (Agata Buzek). When the woman he was with at the beginning of the movie turns up dead, Smith decides to hunt down the man responsible. Meanwhile, Cristina questions her own faith, confronts her haunted past, and makes Smith contemplate his own violent nature. Redemption is the feature directorial debut for Knight, who had previously scripted Eastern Promises and Dirty Pretty Things. ~ Perry Seibert, Rovi