The Raid is an Indonesian martial arts/action movie about a S.W.A.T Team who raid an apartment complex, taking on a crime lord’s henchmen, and there are a couple of fight scenes hidden away too.
I am always wary of action movies because they are generally, reliably tedious, but that’s why I love film because there are always exceptions that just blow your mind, The Raid finds itself up there with Taken (2008) to be one of the most beautifully crafted action films in existence. (Don’t argue with me: Snatch, 2000, was boring.)
It’s wonderfully violent and you’ll be amazed at just how many places on the human body can be punched, The Raid is essentially one massive fight scene punctuated by a few minutes of plot every so often. But the narrative of the story is a lot more thought out than anyone would expect and contains two and a half actual twists, they aren’t exactly of the same calibre as The Usual Suspects (1995) or Fight Club (1999) but for some reason they manage to make an impact, perhaps because it is such a pleasant surprise to find a satisfying narrative in a film that most of the lines are comprised of things like “ouch” and “oh heavens! My teeth appear to have been roundhouse kicked down into my spleen.”
The fight scenes themselves are insane, each one is blisteringly fast, brutal and nobody lands smoothly on their back like a wrestler, they’re always folded up like an accordion, or they land on something pointy or hard. There is one scene in particular towards the end of the film that genuinely made me feel exhausted just watching, obviously there will be people who think that a never-ending river of fight scenes will get repetitive and that might be true for people who don’t really like this sort of film, but on the other hand, each one is so different and uses the mise-en-scene for each environment fantastically and they all stand out.
The cinematography was beautiful too, a greenish tint gave the film a gritty grounding in realism reminiscent of The Matrix (1999), and the camera work was great and showed that the director Gareth Evans really knows what he’s doing behind the scenes.
For people who enjoy an old school, violent, onscreen beatdown of an evening, then this is definitely a must watch. For people who aren’t really into martial arts films then this may just be worth giving a try because the fact that it is so beautifully put together is enough to help you get past the violence.
Author Biography
Matt Cazwell has studied film for a number of years now, He grew up watching The Lion King endlessly on repeat and branched out from there. He wants to prove that silly comedies and tacky horrors are just as emotionally valid as tragic dramas and Oscar winning thrillers.
Film Details
The Raid (Serbuan Maut, 2011)
Indonesia
Director Gareth Evans
Runtime 101 Minutes
