The Raid: Redemption
CAST
Iko Uwais, Joe Taslim
RATING
R
RELEASE
March 23, 2012 (NY/LA)
DIRECTOR
Gareth Evans
STUDIO
Sony Pictures Classics
RUNNING TIME
1 hour 41 minutes
STARS
***1/2
REVIEW:
No other movie this year has been as violent and as brutal as 'The Raid: Redemption.' This film made a huge splash at the Midnight Madness portion of the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival, and then re-premiered at this year's Sundance with a new score done by Mike Schinoda of Linkin Park, which by the way is a stunning piece of music. The plot here is pretty simple: a group of elite cops are assigned to kill a ruthless drug lord who lives at the top of a huge hotel that he owns. In order to get to the drug lord, these cops have to fight their way up the 30 floor building and get to him before they are all dead. The story is very basic because 80% of this film is non-stop gory action. Who doesn't love a good action film after all? 'The Raid: Redemption' is exciting, action-packed, and one of the goriest films I've ever seen.
While the film is mostly action, they do have talking portions spread throughout, and the dialogue that's been put in here wasn't exactly well written. Friends who had seen the film before me had told me that there was barely any dialogue and nothing but action. It must have been that they saw it on the big screen, because for some reason I was noticing all of the subtitled (this film is spoken in Indonesian) dialogue whenever it came up. I don't hate talking in movies, but the script here is kind of average. This is probably a tiny nitpick with the film itself, but I just had problems with the dialogue, along with a couple of the characters in the movie. Talking about them would be spoiling what happens in here, so let's just leave it at that. Despite having these minor problems, what was promised to the audience was delivered in full force: the non-stop gory action.
This is the type of action movie that might as well be one nonstop action sequence. The martial arts choreography is absolutely incredible in this film. Through most of the fighting scene I had my jaw dropped to the floor because of how amazing it was. Not only is the action fantastic, but it's also very brutal to watch at parts. The final battle especially was sometimes hard to look at because of how this one guy will not give up on fighting his opponents, the police officers. If there's ANY reason that one would want to see this film, it's because they want to see some gory battles between druggies and the police. Who doesn't love seeing people being stabbed, shot, and beaten to death like how many of the people in this film kick the can?
If someone doesn't like action, gore, martial arts, or anything like that, then they will most certainly not enjoy this movie one bit. If someone does like one or all of those things, then they will flip over this. 'The Raid: Redemption' isn't supposed to be a well-acted or well written movie, though I wish it was. This is nothing but one long gory action battle in a fun looking video game. It probably will be enjoyed on the biggest screen one could see it on with the biggest audience possible, because watching it on a little TV in their bedroom probably won't be the best experience. I would know. Overall, 'The Raid: Redemption' is a bloody fun time, and that's all it's trying to be.
I didn't see the trailers or hear much about this film before I put it in my "to see" list. I knew it was going to be violent, and I was ok with that. But wow ... what a ride. If it hadn't been nearly midnight I would have restarted it for a second viewing before sending back to Netflix!
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