The Raid: Redemption

This Indonesian movie will blow your expectations completely away.

The Raid is the most amazing recent action based movie that delivers on such high levels that I cannot ever remember having seen such superb knife fights anywhere before. But not only that, gunfights obliterate the first part, when a squad based team practically starts on an impossible mission to secure a drugs infested building with laboratories, while a dreadful twist awaits the survivors. 

There isn’t much story covered, as it basically wasn’t that much needed, but even so, the acting was convincing given the enormous intensity during this internal war on drugs and the injustice scum occupying the large apartment building. The hand to hand combat itself carried pretty much the second part of the film, and I saw a lot of Pencak Silat in that, plenty of elbows and knees were given. 

The camera swept a lot, but this added to the nature of the fights. Rama as the main protagonist eventually takes the story away from the squad and the focus is mostly then about pursuing and collecting his fellow members, fighting off the waves of incoming criminals and completing the given mission. 

His stamina and endurance were fantastic, but perhaps that reward must go to Mad Dog instead, the main physical villain. As Tama’s(the drug boss) personal bodyguard, he surprisingly gives others during dire situations a chance to fight against him. Near the end of The Raid, the film’s best fight happens, with Mad Dog versus two others, and seeing it and looking at the length of it, plus that beautiful finishing move, was insane. It was a genuine fight to the death, and I loved it more the longer it went.

The ending is an open one, but honestly, it’s not needed to continue. I am blown away enough as I was with this. Seriously, my brain was constantly scanning through this jaw breaking action movie from Indonesia, immediately putting that country on a high spot personally, for any more interesting movies to come out from there. 

The Raid is without a doubt, one of the best mixed action movies with a serious theme and a consistent enough of a story I have ever seen yet. Films such as Ip-Man(2008), Ong-Bak(2003), The Protector(2005) and Chocolate(2008) are all great in their own way as well, but The Raid simply has even more to offer than those ones. Last but not least, the musical score accompanied the scenes strongly, pumping up the action and fights in particular. 

Rating: 8.0