Nordling here.
DIE HARD.
HARD BOILED.
THE RAID: REDEMPTION.
Call it hyperbole if you want. I've seen it. I've seeing it again tonight. I'm seeing it at a film festival, and if I was the responsible critic I'm supposed to be, I'd be watching a movie I haven't seen before so I can write about it. But I can't. The pull is too great, the need to get that adrenaline fix is too strong, and as a film fan I am compelled to share that greatness with that pumped as hell Paramount audience. Even now as I write this, the power that THE RAID: REDEMPTION has over me is overwhelming.
DIE HARD.
HARD BOILED.
THE RAID: REDEMPTION.
The premise is simple. Rama (Iko Uwais, who helped choreograph the film's jawdropping action sequences) is a rookie cop with a pregnant wife and an elder father at home. Before he leaves for the day, on a mission that will surely cost lives, he tells the old man, simply, "I'll bring him back." This team of elite and rookie cops make their way to a 30 story tenement building, ruled with an iron fist by crime lord Tama (Ray Sahetaphy), with his right hand men Mad Dog (Yayan Ruhian), a man so fierce he prefers to get in close to his kills, and Andi (Doni Alamsyah) who is something of a numbers man.
But once the cops infiltrate the building, someone alerts Tama about the impending raid, and his forces manage to cut the team off with no chance of escape. If Rama ever hopes to see his family again, he must try to fight them all, floor by floor, until he can reach safety, and help save any wounded cops if he can. But Rama must contend with the terrifying Mad Dog, and look for a man that he never thought he'd see again, to try to bring him out.
Iko Uwais is simply amazing as Rama. The fight scenes are visceral, each punch shattering speakers across the theater as he makes his way through the building. But not only is he a deadly weapon, he elicits sympathy. Rama isn't just a fist, he's a heart as well, and Uwais knows how play both with equal skill. The bad guys work terrifically, especially Ruhian as Mad Dog, one of the most frightening villains in recent memory. As he dispatches cop after cop, he seems damn near unstoppable. But THE RAID: REDEMPTION isn't just fight scene after fight scene. The story is compelling and the characters, while perhaps not very deep, work well enough that you root for the heroes to succeed.
Then, there are the action sequences, which are so exquisitely orchestrated that they build like a symphonic suite of pain and kickassocity. This movie builds and builds, each fight even bigger than the one before it. I can't imagine an audience that won't be on their feet for some of them - and the action choreography is damn near perfect, with cinematography to match. Sure, there's some shakycam, but it's only to build the intensity because Uwais and director Gareth Evans have planned each fight so well that it's never confusing, not once. The geography is flawless. The film wisely lays out the building early on, so that you unconsciously understand where everyone is in the building and even in the same room. I haven't seen such confident action direction since John Woo unleashed the doves in THE KILLER and, yeah, HARD BOILED.
DIE HARD.
HARD BOILED.
THE RAID: REDEMPTION.
Gareth Evans' previous film, MERANTAU, also featured Iko Uwais, but that film is in no way any kind of preparation for the work these men do here. MERANTAU was an intimate action movie, if there is such a thing - THE RAID: REDEMPTION is grand scale action filmmaking that is rarely if ever seen, and I can't wait to see what the sequel, BERANDAL, brings to this continuing story. Because once THE RAID: REDEMPTION ends, you'll demand that sequel, or at the very least, for the projectionist to start the movie over again.
THE RAID: REDEMPTION is one of the finest action movies I've ever seen. Call it hyperbole, call it over-exaggeration, I don't give a shit. I've seen it, and I stand by it.
DIE HARD.
HARD BOILED.
THE RAID: REDEMPTION.
Do. Not. Miss. This.
