Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Reviewing The Raid: Redemption

The Raid doesn't start with a bang, it started with usual buildup towards the inevitable violence, but when the things started, you can't take your eyes off it, and it continues to rolled over you over and over again like a mean ashpalt roller machine. The plot is quite simple: A squad of SWAT team prepares a Raid on a building owned by a drug lord, it also serves on a hideout for dangerous criminals and terorrists, then fate goes batshit crazy (triggered by n R-rated scene that will probably created the spin-off, The Raid: Lost Generation), long story short the SWAT's raid become a fight for survival, a journey full of carnage and beautiful violence.


 This is the very first picture on google search, the sole reason I posted it
 
What's the good? The Raid has only one strong point: The fights, every single fight scenes in this movie is beautifully executed, unpredictable, and well-choregraphed, whether it's one-one-one, two-on-one, or even a mass fight involving several people at once, the solo fights by Iko Uwais are the highlighted events from the movie, the fights scene will came at you full-powered, it didn't build up, it didn't take long, they're fast fast and straight in your face street fighting with every assortment of lethal tools including the building's concrete walls itself, it's brutal and adrenaline surging, it's not shiny like the Matrix or flowing like Ong Bak, it's goddamned bleak as hell where every wrong enemy moves are exploited and often resulted in quick death or a grotesque scene.

The Lethality level of fight is strengthened by the scene's ambience, like the light, camera positioning, and sounds. My God, the sounds of the fight is uniquely satisfying for my ears, whether it's a knuckle's, a swinging sword, or just a guttural sounds of a severed neck artery and so on. The sounds itself is so connected with the fight, the sound of a knuckle that broke's a rib is different from a knuckle that didn't, you can tell the fight is coming to an end when the punches or kickes become so erratic you won't even blink due the fear you'll lose the next frame. The lighting helps a lot, the camera positioning are good and the CG helps a lot (most of the bloods are animated but didn't feel too phony).

 
 The body count caused by the right guy's moustache is also satisfying

Despite the great fighting scenes, there are also some fight scene that didn't exceed the expectation, the fight on the drugs lab are so lame it didn't get the usual applause from the audience, it feels like a filler and so anticlimactic, the story is predictable and the movie is ended with another anticlimactic event, the actor are decent but none too groundbreaking, Ray Sahetapy provide a good one at the beginning but also too comical. Iko Uwais doesn't speak much but he's just about so-so, Donny Alamsyah is better (too bad he didn't get too much fighting scenes), special credits to Yayan Ruhiyan for his moustache and hair.... err no, it's because his crazy moves strengthen his Mad Dog character, all others are mediocre, but as I said before the story doesn't matter, it's a martial art movie and it live it's hype.

The one thing that noticed by me is the amount of dark humour scattered at this movie, I watched this movie with it's original language and laughed my ass hard when that Eastern Indonesian speaks with his dialect in a scene, no offense but their dialect never quite grew in my ear, I noticed the amount of serious dialogue and the... I don't know... 'funny' dialogues amounted the same, were they intended by the director? Could be, but it helps release the tension after or before the fight, IMO it's probably there in purpose to made the audience didn't fall asleep on the in-between-fight scenes, I personally want to see how's the subtitled version looks like on these scenes, hope it helps them feel the humours.

I recalled his real name is Alfred or something: 
Well Al, believe me, you're my new fave cameo ever

Final Verdict: It's awesome, and I KEEP WANTING MORE, GODDAMIT THIS MOVIE IS TOO SHORT!!! I don't care about the story but how should I? The movie already makes me want to spar with my friends so I guess it's quite influencing, let me gives this beautiful piece of art an 8.8