Hummingbird (released as Redemption in the United States) is a 2013 action crime film written and directed by Steven Knight in his directorial debut and starring Jason Statham and Agata Buzek.
Reeling from a traumatic tour of duty in Afghanistan, Joseph 'Joey' Smith, a SAS soldier who has deserted, returns to London to face another kind of war: life on the streets as a damaged, homeless veteran. In an attempt to rehabilitate himself, Joey assumes another man's identity and seeks the aid of Sister Cristina, a young nun who works at an inner-city parish, and gets a job as an enforcer for a Chinese mob. However, the brutal death of a dear friend will, inevitably, force him to avenge her murder, dragging him deeper and deeper into a dark world of pain, guilt, and suffering.
Tropes:
- The Alcoholic: Joey Smith. He manages to clean himself up when he takes over Damon's apartment, but falls Off the Wagon after he kills Max Forrester. He later explains to Cristina that he drinks because when he is sober he is too good at violence and it comes too him too easily. Drinking is his way to try to take the edge off the killing machine the army turned him into.
- Alliterative Name: Joey Smith adopts the alias Joey Jones.
- Artistic License – Law: A German court could not have sentenced Cristina to a convent.
- Black-Tie Infiltration: Joey attends a black tie rooftop cocktail party in order to confront Max Forrester.
- Cardboard Box Home: At the start of the film, Joey and Isabel are sharing a cardboard box in an alley in London.
- Catapult Nightmare: Joey wakes up from his Flashback Nightmare of the ambush in Afghanistan by sitting bolt upright. Unfortunately,he goes straight from the dream into a hallucination.
- Cold Cash: Joey stores the cash he earns working the Chinese mob in the fridge in Damon's apartment.
- Dangerous Deserter: Joey Smith is a rare example of a dangerous deserter as a protagonist. He is an ex-Special Forces soldier on the run from a court martial who is living on the streets of London. He actually is guilty of the war crimes of which he was accused, and is still being pursued by the military police.
- Disposable Sex Worker: Max Forrester is yuppie who gets his kicks from beating up prostitutes. He eventually kills one and dumps her body in the Thames. Unfortunately for him, the girl he killed was Isabel; Joey White's Morality Pet.
- Eye Scream: While searching for information on Isabel's killer, Joey threatens to gouge out Taxman's eye with a spoon.
- Faux Yay: To deflect the suspicion of Damon's neighbors while living in Damon's flat, Joey tells them that he is Damon's boyfriend.
- Flashback Nightmare: Joey has a flashback nightmare to the ambush in Afghanistan which wiped out the rest of his squad.
- Important Haircut: After getting out of the shower in Damon's flat, Joey peers at himself in the mirror before cutting off his lank and filthy hair and shaving his head so he looks like the soldier he used to be. This is the first step on his road to redemption.
- Groin Attack: When confronting Bouzanis and Taxman, Joey distracts them with a spoon (It Makes Sense in Context), then hits the bigger Bouzanis with a brutal groin strike, that drops him to his knees, allowing Joey time to deal with the smaller Taxman.
- Locked Away in a Monastery: Cristina killed her gymnastics coach—who was sexually abusing her—when she was a young girl. Because of her age, she was not sent to prison but instead to a convent.
- Market-Based Title: was released in the US under the title Redemption.
- Money Mauling: When Joey is collecting for Mr. Choy, a family of restaurateurs tries to stop him taking the cash, and he beats them down with the cash box.
- Morality Pet: Sister Christina becomes this for Joey, forcing him to confront the rightness of his actions.
- Mr. Smith: When Joey tries to get antibiotics from Sister Cristina and tells her that he can't give the authorities his real name, she tells him to go to a clinic and give his name as 'Smith'. He says that would be a bad idea, as his name really is Smith. She then suggests he use 'Jones'. Later, when he needs a spur-of-the-moment alias, he introduces himself as 'Joey Jones'.
- Mugging the Monster: A group of football hooligans decide to rough Joey up when he escorts them from the Chinese restaurant where they were causing trouble. He quickly wipes the street with them.
- Noble Shoplifter: At the end of the film, Cristina receives a note from Joseph, revealing he has paid his debts to everyone including Damon: replacing the money he had taken from Damon's bank account, and paying in more as 'rent' for having lived in Damon's flat for months while Damon was away.
- Non-Action Big Bad: For all his actions as a murderer and abuser, Max Forrester couldn't lift a finger to even fend for his life. His final confrontation with Joey lasts for ten seconds, with Joey flinging Max off a balcony almost effortlessly.
- Off the Wagon: Having cleaned himself up, Joey falls off wagon after he kills Max Forrester, and is lying in the street drunk outside the Covent Garden Opera House. He is seen still swigging from a bottle of vodka as he staggers through the streets of London in the final scene.
- One-Word Title
- Shell-Shocked Veteran: Homeless and on the run from a military court martial, psychically and psychologically damaged ex-special forces soldier Joseph White is navigating London's criminal underworld when he seizes an opportunity to assume another man's identity — transforming into an avenging angel in the process.
- Slashed Throat: As a young girl, Cristina killed the gymnastics coach who was sexually abusing her by slitting his throat.
- Slavery Is a Special Kind of Evil: Due to Cristina acting as his conscience, Joey is already having qualms about working as Mr.Choy's enforcer, but it is learning about Choy's human trafficking operation that drives the final wedge between them. In the letter he sends Cristina detailing everything he is doing to make amends, he specifically mentions that he has reported details of the human trafficking operation to the police. This is the only one of Choy's criminal enterprises he mentions.
- Tae Kwon Door: Joey slams the head of an enforcer who threatens him a machete in the door of a telephone booth.
- Title Drop: Joey often has random hallucinations of the men he killed and of "hummingbirds", the aerial drones in Afghanistan.
- Troubling Unchildlike Behaviour: As a young girl, Cristina killed the gymnastics coach who was sexually abusing her.
- War Crime Subverts Heroism: Joseph reveals that he is on the run from a court martial for random revenge killings he carried out in Afghanistan for the deaths of his men, who were slaughtered in front of him.
- You Must Be Cold: A rare gender-reversed example. Upon finding Joey passed out in the street in front of the Covent Garden Opera House, Cristina takes off her coats and drapes it over him.
