The Raid (An ignorant Foreigner Review)

So they make some pretty awesome actions movies in Indonesia...



Have you ever watched a foreign movie and just ignored the subtitles the entire time and came up with your own movie? Well I went to an advanced screening of this movie last week and I forgot to wear my glasses so I couldn't read the subtitles of The Raid. But honestly it didn't really matter if I could read them at all, the plot is fairly simple and frankly no one is there to watch the gripping tale of a Mobster being brought to Justice by a group of young fresh faced SWAT troopers anyway.

Now from what I could understand of this movie is it starts off with a bunch of hostages being shot in the head point blank by some real sick evil dude in a tatty suit. It's a pretty confronting way to start a film but its gruesomeness is just an appetiser for what is in store. Then some Police reports and loose plot outlines are drawn out and 20 Indonesian SWAT team members storm the bad guy's building.

The Next Hour and a half can only be described as some of the most scintillating, exciting, heart pounding, fist clenching, eye popping, erection inducing action sequences I've seen in years... Hell maybe even ever. It's rare to see a honest God Balls to then wall Action film these days.

Early on there is an insane shoot out scene between the SWAT and the mobsters and the bodies just start piling up from there. But the fire fights aren't what makes the movie stand out, it's the beautifully choreographed fist fight scenes. How one level of the building can be filled to the brim with a ton of mobsters with automatic weapons and another can only have guys holding machetes is beyond me but it did provide with some amazing fights and brutal bone crunching finishes.

I was also impressed with how well this was all shot and edited together. Used a single camera approach to get many different angles and viewpoints during each fight scene rather than using a tracking camera or a fixed position and having the action work around it. I can see a lot of time and thought was put into filming these fights. It all flows really well with the pulsating electronic music backing it. To think they made this on a meagar budget of a Million Dollars is astounding.

In this film the basic characters besides the 17 other SWAT members you don't really seem to care about are the Young SWAT Leader who seems to know some wicked Kung Fu and you later find out he has a wife and kid at home somewhere waiting for him but they literally harp on that for like a second then its back to the ass kicking and looking after this one crippled dude that manages to survive the chaos. Then there is Second in charge who seems to resent him for some odd reason, he knows some decent Kung Fu too and spends most of the movie hiding with some Old Man who seems to have some long standing tie in with the Mobster Boss.

On the bad guy side there is a Creepy Indian looking dude that is really good with a Machete, the brother of the SWAT Leader and some Small but Ultra Amazing Mobster martial artist who of course is the Muscle to the Mobster boss and is basically the Boss Fight of the movie. I'd like to say that the small dude with the mad skills pulled out some crazy moves and there were some truly innovative kills in the movie as well. Heck the final fight got a rousing ovation from those in attendance... It was that damn good.

Again... I didn't have my glasses so I have no idea any of their names or motives besides getting this King Pin Mobster. I'll look up the Wikipedia page for a synopsis of the film after writing this.

There isn't much of a story to follow which is good, there is a few small twists here and there to at least show they weren't working without a script entirely but regardless if you want to watch some straight up action with awesome martial arts then I highly recommend you go watch this film. Heck there is even some light moments where everyone laughed at a clever line delivered... I dad no idea what was so funny at the time but I was still coming down from the adrenaline rush from the previous fight scene.

But if you won't take my glowing recommendation, watch some of these clips.









IMDB Page: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1899353/