The Raid: Redemption
Starring: Iko Uwais, Ananda George, Ray Sahetapy
Writer and Director: Gareth Evans
Synopsis:
In the Jakarta ghetto, a SWAT team raid a high rise apartment building full of thugs and murderers. The main person of interest is a drug lord named Tama.
My Thoughts:
I gotta be honest here and say I don't know a whole lot about martial arts, but I love watching martial arts movies. That is the whole reason I gathered interest in The Raid. I had heard from various people that it was a severely badass martial arts flick. Needless to say, I was left unprepared for all the insanity that was about to beat the fucking shit out of my eyeballs and superglue my jaw to my goddamn knees. This flick is a half 'n half glass of awesome, for fans who like their action with fists and feet and/or off the charts gun fights. This is a movie that straight up forces you onto the edge of your seat and if you don't comply, you're likely going to receive an ass whoopin'!
The martial arts side of the film kinda reminded me of Tony Jaa's badassness in the Ong Bak films, only more brutal. I figured it was some offspring of Muay Thai. After doing some reading, I discovered that it's an Indonesian born style of martial arts called Pencak Silat. It blew me away, for lack of a better way to say it. Unlike films such as Ong Bak, I wasn't giggling at a horrid storyline in between the action sequences, because the narrative is pretty solid. There's nothing complex about it, but it never feels cheesy. Truthfully, there really aren't a whole lot of moments where someone isn't beating the snot out of someone else or going down in a spray of bullets anyway, but the story we do get flows well.
Both the ass kicking and gun fights in this movie are out of control violent, and there are so many moments where I had absolutely no idea what the fuck was about to be displayed across my TV screen. I'm going to leave it at that.
I'm no Linkin Park fan, at-fucking-all, but I have to give Mike Shinoda a nod of approval for the theme score that he and Joseph Trapanese incorporated into The Raid. It's just really damn good and fits the mood well. Now, while I don't like Linkin Park, I do like The Deftones a great bit, so the fact that he sings on a song during the end credits was a huge bonus for me. But all 'n all, if this is what Shinoda can do when it comes to film scores, he should stick with that shit. Though, I wouldn't mind hearing the film's original score composed by Arai Prayogi and Fajar Yuskemal, which was replaced by Shinoda and Trapanese's music.
I want to keep this short, so I'm gonna say just see The Raid as soon as you can. It knocked me on my ass. No action film fan should be without something this damn bonkers.
