Tension. Tension. Shootout. Tension. Shootout. More Tension. Fight. Fight. Fight. Fight. This is The Raid in a nutshell. This film is a rock em' sock em' absolutely brutal beatdown of an action film that takes no prisoners, pulls no punches, and is not afraid of making you cringe. Plot be damned, because it's all about the video game-like action that sprinkles itself in the 90+ minutes of pure Indonesian mayhem.
For those that still want to know what it's about, The Raid starts off with our male lead leaving his pregnant wife to do a mission. The mission is simple: raid a creepy abandoned building and arrest the guy responsible for running all the illegal nonsense. What follows are plot twists, plot turns, a few surprises, plenty of clichés, and enough action to cover two summer seasons. Not kidding in the least bit, action junkies will get their fix and some with this flick.
The Raid's biggest strengths can be contributed to the direction and cinematography. This film lacks lighting; it lacks a polished look, and avoids the wide shot like the dickens. Close-ups are abundant when building tension, when the stakes are raised, and especially when the fights are delivered. Containing some of the best-directed martial arts since Jackie Chan himself, the fights are extremely well-choreographed, tightly edited, and are so intense that during my viewing, half the audience walked out. This is no PG-13 fight flick, you'll see nasty body blow after blow, and see more knives than a butcher, and more fatalities than every Mortal Kombat game combined. The death and dismembered count is nice and high.
For the nitpicky, the plot is definitely clichéd and definitely predictable. For the nitpicky, the acting is honestly not the best, and neither is the writing. But nobody is walking into this movie to focus on any type of story. You are entering this movie with three things in mind: action, carnage, and martial arts.
And you will have plenty of all three.
And perhaps way more than you can handle.
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