The Raid [Serbuan maut] (2012)
AKA The Raid: Redemption
Starring Iko Uwais, Joe Taslim, Doni Alamsyah, Yayan Ruhian, Pierre Gruno, Ray Sahetapy, Tegar Satrya, Iang Darmawan
Directed by Gareth Evans
Expectations: Super high. So stoked for this movie.
Before I get into more specific feelings about The Raid, I want to say that I really enjoyed it overall. I liked Merantau a lot more, but I think The Raid is the better made film hands down. With that out of the way, let’s get down to business. Iko Uwais and Gareth Evans, hot off of the success of Merantau, are back to bring you a bone-crunching, kick-ass martial arts film. If you went into The Raid cold, you’d never guess this was the case from the opening half hour or so, as there is very little, if any, martial arts at all during this time. It’s all police squads and machine gun fire, and while automatic weapons are always pretty damn exciting and entertaining, I was there for the punchy-punch.
There’s not a whole lot of story being told in The Raid, but that’s to be expected. The basics of The Raid are this: There’s an evil fucker on the top floor of a fifteen-story building. He must be taken down, along with all the other evil fuckers that he has rented rooms to in the building, not to mention his two evil henchmen fuckers. As one of the cops says during the opening scene, “Let’s clean up this city.”