Film Review - THE RAID: REDEMPTION ★★★★☆

The Raid: Redemption is that rare, exceptional, and simply unstoppable action film that will leave you gasping for air at every turn. Once it gets into gear, which is within mere minutes after its opening scene, prepare to have your senses beaten to a pulp in the best way possible.

The plot is pretty straightforward, a SWAT team comprised mostly of rookie cops is sent to infiltrate the high-rise lair of local crime lord Tama (Ray Sahetaphy), and end his reign of terror by bringing him to justice. It's worth nothing that Tama has an unstoppable right hand man killing machine know only as Mad Dog, and said high-rise building also happens to have thirty floors worth of apartments that house a virtual rogues gallery of thugs, killers, and drug addicts.

When at first the mission entailed breaking into the building and capture Tama, the tide is quickly turned on the newbie cops and simply surviving long enough to get out of the building becomes the new goal. Relentless tension and action ensue as our fists-a-flying hero Rama (Iko Uwais) goes from floor to floor, room to room, and thug to thug in what seems to be an endless maze of potential deathtraps. With a fallen commander and a wounded comrade, he is left only with the aid of unlikely allies and his own survival skills to hope to see the mission completed (and safely return home to his wife who is carrying his unborn child).

When nearly every tenant in the run down, grimy building is a gangster, you can be sure they possess both a deadly weapon the intent to use it with skill and agile force against the police intruding on their home turf. Guns, machettes, fists are all utilized on the confined battle field.

Iko Uwais, in addition to giving a star making performance in the film as the hero Rama, is responsible for choreographing the amazing fight sequences, which come fast, furious, and at a non-stop pace. A lesser film could easily slip into the trap of becoming a monotonous series of mindless video game fight sequence after fight sequence, but The Raid excels in its set-up and execution of the successive stages in the mission.

The frantic, yet rock solid, cinematography is matched by it's masterful martial arts choreography and solid cast. What keeps the raw action both grounded and brutal is the precision of the hand-held camerawork. The film doesn't resort to falling back on slow motion or Steadicam shooting to evoke a super cool style, and thankfully no attention is given to gratuitous gravity defying wire work or even worse, Matrix-esque bullet time effects.

Every single visceral punch and kick is felt and heard, and there must be hundreds of them. Yayan Ruhian as Mad Dog is both a relentless killer and a memorable villain. More so as an unstoppable force, and not immediately as an imposing figure since he is physically smaller than most of the adversaries he dispatches with the utmost of ease. 

Directed, written, and edited by Gareth Evans, the Indonesian film has been gaining steady word of mouth with successful runs at the Toronto, SXSW, and Sundance Film Festivals. The film also boasts an original score from Linkin Park's Mike Shinoda, who makes a winning debut here as a film composer.

You can make easy comparisons to Die Hard for its high-rise/high body count plot, or John Woo's action icon Hard Boiled, but The Raid: Redemption has more than enough going for it to proudly stand all on its own as an adrenaline charged action epic, and will easily be ranked as one of the best in its genre.   

The Raid: Redemption opens in select theaters today.

REVIEW RATING: ★★★★☆
Directed By: Gareth Evans
Starring: Iko Uwais, Yayan Ruhian, Ray Sahetapy, Joe Taslim
Studio: Sony Pictures Classics
Rated: R