The Raid: Redemption

2011 action movie

Rating: 13/20

Plot: Police raid an apartment complex, and a lot of people get shot and booted in the head. It's a bone-snappin' good time!

As long as you don't pop this in looking for things like character development and story, you'll be just fine. I can't remember anything about the characters in this one actually except that one was ruthless and two were related. And that's about it. But it doesn't matter because this is credits-to-credits action mayhem, and so well choreographed that it almost becomes high art. It's the kind of violence you can feel through the screen, every crack of a radius, every concussive head-against-the-wall, every two or three story stairway drop, every machete or hatchet to the shoulder blade, every stab in the gut. Gareth Evans doesn't screw around here. He doesn't let the story development get in the way of the carnage development, and he doesn't interrupt the proceedings with any one-liners or silly moments. The tone is consistently dark, and the pace is punishing. A lot of that is the appearance of the setting. It all takes place in this dilapidated apartment building which allows for some cool close-quarter fight choreography. It all looks terrific, especially if you're used to watching a lot of frenetic video game action, but after a while, it sort of runs out of new things to show us. This is a movie that I enjoyed watching, or at least the animal inside of me (baby koala) did. It's the kind of thing that can make your intestines twitch.

This movie and a poker game forced me to listen to Linkin Park (possibly for the first time ever?) twice in one week. I thought the guitar-heavy score worked well with the visuals in this one.

I'll watch the sequel the next time I'm in the mood for some Indonesian martial arts or just want a movie with a high body count. The sequel is cleverly titled The Raid 2.