Awesome / Dredd

As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.

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• Arguably Dredd's Establishing Character Moment occurs during the opening car chase:
  Dispatcher: Do you require backup?
  Dredd: No. (accelerates)
• "I said, 'Hot-Shot'." (click)
  • There's also the long range equivalent of that moment, "Incendiary". (click)
    • Anyone's who's seen the movie knows exactly what these snippets refer to, and how painfully, brutally awesome both scenes are. The second one is stunning enough that Ma-Ma — who up until then has been stoic, unyielding and utterly sure of victory — finally realizes she has no hope of stopping Dredd by herself, and has to call in some corrupt Judges to handle him and Anderson.
• Anderson using her powers on Kay. Since they're in his head, he (wrongly) thinks that it's his head, so he must be in control. He shoots her, to no effect, then settles for making her strip down and give him oral sex. Anderson lets him think it's working before appearing next to him and revealing that she replaced "herself" with Ma-Ma. Who once castrated an abusive pimp with her teeth.
  Anderson: You're not the only one who can play mind games.
  • She ends up doing something to his psyche off-screen that is so bad he literally pisses himself and is visibly in deep, fearful shock for the next few scenes.
• Towards the end, Kay has Anderson tied up and going through the usual bad guy mockery, and decides to kill her with her own Lawgiver. Someone should have told him it only fires if the finger on the trigger matches Anderson's DNA. Then maybe he'd still have two hands. And be less dead. Anderson's defiance of his Evil Gloating deserves a mention and is one of the first signs that her level in badass is starting to stick.
  Kay: You got any last words, bitch?
  Anderson: (without a hint of fear) That's funny, I was going to ask you that. Bitch.
  • And while Kay is still in shock from the loss of his arm, Anderson calmly stands up and roundhouse kicks him in the head hard enough to break his neck, killing him instantly.
• While being pursued by the corrupt Judges, Dredd rapidly goes through all modes of ammo and each one is empty... except for Hi-EX. Five seconds later, no more Judge Alvarez.
• Dredd's speech to Peach Trees/threat to Ma-Ma's gang.
  Dredd: Inhabitants of Peach Trees, this is Judge Dredd. In case you people have forgotten, this block operates under the same rules as the rest of the city. Ma-Ma is not the law. I am the law. Ma-Ma is a common criminal. Guilty of murder, guilty of the manufacture and distribution of the narcotic known as Slo-Mo, and as of now, under sentence of death. Any who obstruct me in carrying out my duty will be treated as an accessory to her crimes. You have been warned. And as for you, Ma-Ma... judgment time.
  • And then, if that wasn't enough, Dredd anticipates Ma-Ma's henchmen pinpointing his location, ties up one of the thugs' corpses inside the phone booth — and not seen by the camera, no less — as a decoy, and when they're all clustered around, right where he wants them, he shows up from an overwatch point two floors up and fires a white phosphorus-based Incendiary round that burns them all alive.
• Anderson further solidifying that she's no Faux Action Girl and tears through several guards and easily kills two non-rookie corrupt Judges before regrouping with Dredd.
• Dredd dosing Ma-Ma up on Slo-Mo, before throwing her out of a 200th floor window, just like she ordered done to the three drug dealers that intruded on her turf.
  Dredd: We're a kilometer above ground. What do you figure the range is on that thing? Could it get through one hundred levels of concrete? How about two hundred? Let's find out. (hauls her to the window) Citizen Ma-Ma, your crimes are multiple homicide and the manufacture and distribution of narcotics. How do you plead?
  (Dredd doses the bleeding Ma-Ma with the Slo-Mo, and she glares silently at him)
  Dredd: Defence noted.
  • And just before that, Ma-Ma tries to threaten Dredd with bombs that will destroy the block if her heart stops. Dredd shoots her in the stomach to set her up for her aforementioned Karmic Death. Then, once Ma-Ma is inevitably reduced to a smear on the concrete upon impact, he's proven correct; the sensor for her bombs does indeed activate... and because it's out of range, it doesn't work.
    Dredd: (long pause, nothing happens) ...yeah.
• Anderson letting the Clan Techie go. When Dredd calls her on it, Anderson, in the process of rationalizing why she did so, does what no other character in the entire film has managed. She gets Judge Dredd to back down, and even makes him impressed — in his understated way — with her to boot.
  Dredd: Mind explaining yourself, rookie? Abetting a felon is not just a fail offense. It's a crime.
  Anderson: I already picked up the fail when I lost my primary weapon. I'm not gonna be a Judge, and I don't need to be a mind reader to know it. He's a victim, not a perp. And until my assessment is formally over, I'm still entitled to dispense justice; and that's what I just did by letting him go. Maybe that will be the one difference I do make.
  • Also, after that, Anderson takes the lead going after Ma-Ma, despite being the junior Judge.
    • Special mention really needs to be given to that scene. For most of the movie, whenever she's in a firefight, Anderson is following Dredd's lead, only taking initiative when he orders her to, and is very hesitant and unsure. Here, she takes point, and the two effortlessly mow their way through the last of Ma Ma's gang without saying a single word or communicating beyond a few taps and hand gestures. Lose her primary weapon or no, Anderson earned her pass.
  • Watch the scene closely. When Anderson starts explaining herself, she's calm, but still visibly shaking. By the time she's done talking, she has practically stopped shaking.
• When Ma-Ma decides to deal with things herself by bringing out three miniguns, nearly killing Dredd, and taking out an entire floor of the tower block. Had it been anyone but Dredd, it would have been the most extreme overkill ever. The follow-up scene, where she insists they "Don't stop until they bring back a body... or a piece of it", counts as well. The goons go into the smoke, there's a few tense moments; then Dredd walks out, casually dumps her top enforcer over the railing, then vanishes back into the fog without breaking stride. Three miniguns, tens — if not hundreds — of thousands of rounds of explosive ammunition, and it wasn't overkill enough.
  • Worth noting, in particular, the sheer nonchalance of Dredd as he emerges from the smoky inferno and tosses Caleb over the side. The camera focuses on Ma-Ma's stunned reaction, and when the camera turns back to Dredd, some viewers may expect Dredd to be staring her down... but instead, Dredd has already turned right around and is walking back into the smoke, in a reverse of the usual Unflinching Walk that is just as awesome.
• The whole opening chase between Dredd and Zwirner's gang. Dredd doesn't even flinch when Zwirner fires at him. When they run over an innocent civilian, Dredd puts a small burst into the van's tyres, tipping it over.
• Lex has Dredd dead to rights after pumping an armour-piercing round into him. Dredd takes advantage of Lex's ego and manages to stall him long enough for Anderson to arrive and kill him.
  Judge Dredd: Wait.
  Judge Lex: "Wait"? Are you kidding me? Did you just say, "Wait"? Judge Dredd — the Judge Dredd — finally gets on the wrong end of a gun, and all he says is, "Wait". You know what? I expected more from you. I mean, wait for what? Wait for me to change my mind? Wait for another two or three seconds of life because you're so fucking weak you can't stand to see it end?
  Judge Dredd: No...
  (Anderson pumps several armour-piercing bullets into Lex from behind, killing him near-instantly)
  Judge Dredd: ...wait for her to shoot you.
  • Before it came to that, Dredd managed to take down two of the corrupt judges by himself; one of them in an absolutely brutal hand-to-hand fight, the other with a Hi-Ex round.

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