Just over half way through Welch director Gareth Evans' Indonesian action opus The Raid, a small, wiry tough guy proclaims: "I don't like pulling a trigger on a gun, it's like ordering takeout." This, probably one of the most bad ass lines ever uttered in any movie, is indicative of the inventive brutality of one of the strongest straight-up genre action films made in the last decade. Premiering at Colin Geddes' Midnight Madness programme at TIFF 2011, The Raid is an unbelievable achievement of bone-crunching choreography, editing, camera work, bloodily satisfying special effects and a proper introduction to action star Iko Uwais.
Every good action flick has a simple, but effective plot structure to fix around set-pieces, and The Raid is no different: Uwais stars as Rama, a rookie member of an Elite SWAT team tasked with bringing down Tama, the most powerful drug lord in Jakarta who resides in an apartment block-slash-fortress containing what seems to be all the most dangerous junkies, killers and straight up criminal lowlifes in the city. Eventually their cover is blown, Tama puts a price on the heads of the team, and learn that the most senior member of the squad has sabotaged any hope of reinforcements. This is in the first 10 minutes of the film. The next 80 minutes is pretty much a non-stop bloodbath of over-the-top action set pieces as Rama tries to fight his way out of the building.
The Raid reminded me a lot of action/siege films like Die Hard and The Rock, but done with action choreography that maintains an efficiency and brutality that I haven't seen attempted in years. Here, Evans shows off an amazing ability to maintain a level of gut-wrenching suspense, while consistently thrilling and shocking the audience. We always feel that Uwais, while showcasing his unbelievable martial-arts intensity and agility, is fighting for his life in every one-versus-twenty man brawl (there's several). This is due to an unflinching bloodiness (with excellent make-up effects depicting some of the most brutal gunshots to the skull, throat stabbings, spine-crackings and neck breaks I've seen in a film in quite sometime, and there is a hell of a lot of them) working in tandem with camerawork that stays fluid and avoids the close-up shakiness seen in many a crappy action flick, and precise, visceral editing that stays noninvasive.
An instant cult classic, "The Raid" will eventually make it over to North American audiences (where it will be re-scored *gulp* by Mike Shinoda of Linkin Park) that will absolutely devour it. This is an example of world class action cinema; a lethal concoction of exciting, bloody, shocking violence, efficient technical filmmaking, and a showcase for a new martial arts superstar in the form of Iko Uwais. Subtitles might be a drawback for some, but that never stopped the films of Jackie Chan, Jet Li or Tony Jaa from being successful. This is the kind of film that sets your adrenaline racing so fast that it takes a couple days just to get it out of your system.
INTERNATIONAL TRAILER
