There has been a lot of talk about this over recent months and weeks. You might have missed it if you're not really into this kind of thing though so don't be surprised if this is the first time you've heard of this. So before I go on too much further I'd better explain what it is. 'The Raid' is a Welsh / Indonesian production written and directed by Gareth Huw Evans but set in Indonesia and starring an entirely Indonesian cast. The plot is very simple: an armed police unit are sent to clear out a building that is ruled by a drug lord and populated by all manner of smack-heads, druggies, down-and-outs and general nutters. And by 'clear out' I mean that they're going to shoot, beat up, arrest and clobber a whole pile of nefarious people. Well that's what they think anyway. After working their way up the first few floors, the shit starts to hit the fan, a lot of people die and soon the police who remain alive are struggling to survive in this building from hell while they work out a way to escape.
In short - this is an action film. Not just any action film, but one in which everything that isn't bone-crunching violence has been stripped away. No one-liners, no dancing on the tree-tops, no multiple camera angled explosions; just martial arts and guns brought together in a superbly choreographed whirlwind of jarring combat. 'The Raid' stars Iko Uwais, who plays Rama. He is a rookie on the force, but he is also a man with an array of superbly-crafted hand-to-hand combat skills, skills that come out in at least 3 extended battle sequences that see him take on a huge array of variously-armed opponents. First in the corridors of the building's 7th floor, then in a large cocaine production area and lastly double-teaming a 'boss' character; the camera shudders in time with the audience each time a blow is landed.
Director Gareth Huw Evans deserves credit in his handling of the fight scenes, but equal credit must go to the fight choreographers and film editors. The former for coming up with such creative and unrepetitive sequences as they did, the latter for cutting everything together to making it followable. It is very much an 18 film. I imagine it's the kind of thing that 30 years ago might have been classified as a video nasty and been locked away from general release. Almost every character in the film is eventually killed without mercy, many of them in quite gruesome ways.
Of course there will be those out there are aren't interested in watching a film with a minimalist plot that involves people hitting each other for 90 minutes. But I'm sure that the purists of 1970s martial arts movies will appreciate a film that cuts out the bullshit and gets back to basics.
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