Friday 7 September 2012

Today's Review: The Raid


The Raid is a foreign film, yes, but it is one that has been so well received that Hollywood is already remaking it. Well, it does have all the hallmarks of a great Hollywood flick. Not much semblance of plot, lots of guns, lots of blood and lots of punching faces. Basically, there's a crime lord holed up at the top of a tower block that he controls, and a group of elite cops are sent in to get him out. Of course everything quickly goes to shit, and a few survivors are left fighting for their lives. There are some obvious twists and turns, but really there's not much to it.

But that's fine, the action is where this movie really shines. It's a shamelessly over the top shooting, fighting movie. Although a large portion of the beginning involves bad guys firing guns that seem to have clips that hold 1,000 bullets into cops that flop around like puppets for half a minute, the martial arts action really picks up around the middle. There are some spectacularly crafted fighting scenes, with grapples, kicks, punches, and the environment all put to excellent use.

If, like a lot of people, subtitles movies aren't really your thing, it doesn't matter too much with The Raid, because most of the people communicate solely in "Hyaa!"s and "Aargh!"s as they fly out of their apartments in casual wear wielding machetes. It's just a fun, violent, well crafted action movie. Definitely worth a watch.

My rating: 4/5

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