The Raid

Film Review: The Raid The Raid is like one of those films that pretty much doesn't need a review. Most people read reviews to decide in advance whether the film would be suitable for them - whether they should go and see it. I'm going to speed the process up with a quick insertion of a decision

You don't have time to watch Ong Bak before you go see this film? How do you have time to read this blog? The Raid is a story light action film with minimal dialogue and maximum bone crunching, neck slicing elbows to the knees action. Although the film is in Indonesian, I would be suprised that in the 5-10 minutes of dialogue throughought the whole 101 minutes of screen time, we lose much in the translation we are given in the English subtitles. Maybe some of the insults might be a bit more creative and culturally specific than "motherfucker" but aside from that, not much else. Character development is one of those haphazard thrown together at the last minute affairs that presumabley in the writer's eyes would detract from the banging people's heads off. We're introduced to the main character early, shown his motivation to stay alive and see him respond to a test of morality in an obvious "he's the good guy" fashion. Pretty much everyone else is on screen for so little time that we haven't got time to warm to them - they're cannon fodder. Just like the villainous assault rifle firing, machete wielding gangsters we're typically laughing about the horrific fashion they're shuffled off the mortal coil. There aren't a lot of suprises when the "plot twists" are so unsubtedly presented to us. There are some also glaring plot holes that are to be expected with these kind of films too - it's as if the good guys never heard of mobile phones and only some of the bad guys liked using guns. People sustain ridiculous amounts of physical damage and awkwardly walk it off as if every bone in their body wasn't shattered. With movies like this, it's best to have understated plotlines. Think of the movie Taken - see that first twenty five minutes where we learn about Liam Neeson's relationship with his daughter? Commando could sum that up in a ridiculous montage involving eating ice cream and feeding deers. If you want to create an aptomosphere of suspense in a violent movie, don't do it by trying to tug on the heart strings with cutesy Holly Vallance is my idol moments, just get stuck into the warzone. It's not supposed to be a well written, realistic story of the hardships of modern times, it's supposed to deliver bullets to the face. So that's all the negative points. Let's talk about the great things. We're given an obvious likable character that kicks ass in every way that counts. Smart, dutiful and able to break your spine he goes through this film, crippling and killing cunts until the story reaches its inevitable conclusion. The fights are fast paced and si savage that they will either make you cringe, sigh in a why-am-I-here-fashion? or chuckle in the way a sniggering schoolboy would, spitting out his coke as his friend tells him what felching is for the first time. There are some little audio/visual tricks though that make this film more enjoyable than a cheesy Sonny Chiba film from the 70s. Moments of silence or implementations of high pitched ringing noises add to the impact of explosions, gun shots or fear. Staggered hand held camera angles allow us to feel the sting our protagonist endures for a short time. I could go on but I was mesmirised by the displays of the Indonesian martial art silat on screen. The whole film just delivers in the way you would hope a mindless martial arts flick would. And if that's not what you're after don't even bother. If you are after an explosive tornado of sheer brutality. I had a lot of fun.