We've praised this film in the past and we'll probably be praising it again as soon as the local BluRay-releases arrive, but in the meantime let me add my bit of praise to the heap. Last week I saw "Redline" on the big screen courtesy of the Camera Japan Festival Rotterdam and a blast was had by the entire audience. Seldom have I heard the crowd giggle with glee so often, or openly guffaw when the onscreen insanity got topped and topped again in a seemingly limitless stairway of energy and creativity.
Oops. Am I overhyping it by this wording? Normally I try not to, but everything in the film is so delightfully over-the-top that I may have to put on the brakes a bit to avoid having my review become as 'revved' as "Redline" is. However, I did really love it. Read on...
The Story:
Once every 5 years, the Redline race is held and racers from all over the galaxy gather to try and see who's best. Trans-am racer J.P. would love to participate but cannot as he "earns" his money by finishing second on purpose in all the semi-finals, skewing the betting odds on behalf of a disgusting mobster.
But when the latest Redline race is revealed to be held on an extremely hazardous location (a warzone even), some scared racers drop out and J.P. unexpectedly gets sent a wildcard.
Will J.P. take the offer and race?
Will J.P. manage to romance the lovely Sonoshee even though she is his rival in the race?
And given his tendency to crash any vehicle he is in, will J.P. survive till the finish?
The Movie:
There is a moment in "Redline" from whereon you have to turn off whatever part of your brain tries to link what you see with any semblance of reality and just go with it. This happens about, say, two minutes into the movie. From then on you are expected to keep that part firmly dormant for the remaining one-hundred minutes.
If you do not, you will most likely be frustrated and get bored by all the overstimulation this film provides. Allow yourself to run loose with the mad dogs however and you are in for one hell of a thrillride.
The crew who made "Redline" seems to have been hand-picked from a group of people we like here at ScreenAnarchy, first and foremost Ishii Katsuhito of "Funky Forest: The First Contact" and "The Taste of Tea" fame, who wrote the screenplay. Strong and manic animation featured in his earlier films already so it always was interesting to see what would happen with him being involved in a fully animated project, and the end result thankfully does not disappoint. His particular brand of humor is very apparent here, as is his ability to infuse some honest feeling into even the silliest things.
Take lead character J.P. whose behavior would be either asinine or saccharine, but he manages to come across as neither. The ultimate underdog, J.P. gets screwed, swindled, thrashed and badmouthed throughout the film but he never complains about it. He rolls with the punches and keeps acting nice, choosing to power up his car for speed alone instead of opting for added weaponry like the rest does. A caricature greaser with a caricature hairdo, he looks ridiculous but compared to the freakshow made up by his opponents he is pretty easy to identify with. It's rare to see an anti-hero who never acts as an asshole yet is without even a shred of self-doubt, but J.P. fills that bill and we start rooting for him automatically.
This goes for the rest of the film as well. "Redline" has a lot of clichees in it, but instead of spoofing them it uses them as pillars, embellishing the entire movie around them. It cheekily asks its audience some pointed questions. What is wrong with cheering for the good guy? What is wrong with getting the girl just by being nice? What is wrong with winning a race through just being the best kick-ass driver with an awesome car?
And the answer is: nothing. There is nothing wrong with cheering for the obvious hero as long as the film never becomes boring or quaint. And "Redline" sure doesn't.
For most of the time the animation saves the film all by itself. The level of detail in the drawings is amazing and even though cgi must have been used (NOBODY can animate a ticker-tape parade by hand within a century!) it all looks firmly handdrawn. Visual jokes sparkle in every frame, be it one depicting a dusty desert, disco dancers or the kind of starscape filled with galactic wonders which makes instant astronauts out of every ten-year-old. There are shout-outs, references, homages and good-natured spoofs by the dozens and these all provide an extra goofy layer while never entirely taking over the film.
And when the day of the Redline race finally arrives, you learn that the rest of the film has just been a warming up exercise for the finale. The way the race starts is already pretty insane and it quickly escalates from there towards pure lunacy. The entire track is put on purpose in the secret weapons testing grounds of an evil empire, so the local rulers want the racers dead (and the cameras gone) as quickly as possible. It gets worse when some extremely powerful bio-weapons escape the control of their masters during the race and the planet-busting-bombs come out as a safety device. Add to that a finishline which is hundreds of feet above the surface, which may seem like bad planning with a race of ground-based vehicles until you see how that little problem gets resolved (and no, it's not the vehicles which do the resolving).
Escalation can be tricky to accomplish if you do it quickly yet want it to last for some time. How do you top one insanity with another? Some careful scaling needs to be applied lest the peak is reached too early. "Redline" manages to accomplish it though, keeping the viewer invested right till the very end. I don't know what my blood pressure or heartrate was during the final minute but I felt exhilarated during the end credits. I cannot wait for the BluRay to arrive so I can watch it over and over again.
Conclusion:
If the devil is in the details Lucifer is very present here: while the general story could hardly have been simpler the execution is a marvelous thing to behold. Many may find it too hyper for its own good but "Redline" is fun from start to finish, a collection of wicked sight-gags wrapped around a 'rah-rah' feeling of righteousness.
Firmly lodged in my top-10 for this year so far, this title is definitely recommended!
You can pre-order the Manga UK BluRay of "Redline" (cheap, English-friendly and playable across Europe and Australia) through our affiliate here:
Link to the Manga UK BluRay release of this title.