While its audience is admittedly small, The Raid is sure to please hard-core action fans with its amazingly choreographed and edited fight scenes.
Rama (Iko Uwais in what is hopefully a star-making role) is a new member of a highly-trained special ops force in Indonesia that is called to raid a twelve story apartment that is believed to be manufacturing and distributing large quantities of drugs and weapons. The apartment is twelve stories high and is heavily guarded by battle hardened gangsters. After things turn violent, Rama discovers that the team was sent their by corrupt officials for an execution--in other words, there will be no back-up. Making matters more complicated is that the gangster on the top floor (Ray Sahetapy) ordering all the killing is guarded by an extremely dangerous adrenaline addict (Yayan Ruhian) and Rama’s own brother (Donny Alamsya).
Those who would be turned off by subtitles shouldn’t fear--there is very little dialogue in this movie. The film is all about the action. In fact, it is nearly two hours of practically non-stop action. A complete bloodbath. People are stabbed, slashed, shot, dismembered, pummeled, strangled, defenestrated, impaled, scalded, exploded, beheaded, bludgeoned, suffocated, crushed, mutilated, and killed for effectively the entire running time. You would think it would be boring--to most it probably would be--but the impressive quality of editing and stunts is so impressive that I found the entire story involving.
Gareth Evans (Merantu) directs and edits with an incredible grasp of how to make practically indistinguishable scenes seem uniquely entertaining. Shakycam and slow-motion are both used---often at the same time--but it never becomes distracting. The combatants are ridiculously skilled and near-immortal (often to laughable extremes), but the violence maintains its intensity. Interwoven into the fight scenes are surprisingly suspenseful moments where the heroes cower in every nook and cranny to avoid the searching killers. There are often multiple fights going on at the same time in different locations, and yet they are edited so well that you never lose track of what is going on and care about the outcome of everything.
Action-lovers rejoice. This is one thrill-ride you don’t want to miss.
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