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The Raid: Redemption (2011)
The Raid: Redemption (2011)
The Raid: Redemption is an absolute explosion. The movie kicks like an energy drink.
I had heard that the movie was really good, but I did not know what it was about before watching it. The only thing that I did know was that Mike Shinoda of LinkinPark and Joseph Trapanese developed the soundtrack for the movie. They collaborated with Chino Moreno the lead singer of Deftones (one of my favorite singers and one of my favorite bands) and he contributes his awesome vocals to the first song in the ending credits called “Razors.Out”. Being the big Chino Moreno fan that I am, I had downloaded the song off of iTunes before I had even heard of The Raid: Redemption. The song meshes the sound of Linkin Park with Deftones. I was bummed that they didn’t make a whole album together because it was pretty sweet.
The movie was filmed in Indonesia and the entire thing is subtitled, or you can choose to watch it dubbed over in English. There is not much to the story, but with this type of action movie that makes no difference at all. If you are the type of person that does not enjoy watching foreign films because of subtitles or for any other reason, I strongly suggest that you give this film a chance. You will quickly forget that you are reading subtitles or that the words you hear don’t match the lips on screen. I cannot think of a movie that has more action throughout than this one. I was very pleasantly surprised when I watched this movie. So much so, that I actually watched it twice in the last couple of months. This film came out of nowhere. It snuck up on me and punched my mind in the face.
The film is about a squad of 20 heavily armed cops who raid a 30 floor apartment building that is home to a drug kingpin and his ruthless gang. The apartment building has security surveillance cameras and the tenants have plenty of firepower of their own. When the bullets start running out, that is when the real action begins.
There are many similarities between this movie and Dredd (2012). To read my review of Dredd (2012) click on this link. The biggest difference between the two films is that The Raid: Redemption is a far superior film.
The fighting sequences and action in the film were nothing less than amazing. There is a little overuse of swearing, but the stress that these people are facing justifies it all. There are martial arts like I have never seen. There is blood, guts, violence, guns, weapons, fighting, fighting, and more fighting. The story is not as solid as it otherwise could be. They took out all of the stops and made this a full-fledged action movie, so really the story does not matter too much. On the other hand, if the writing had been a little bit better the movie could have easily been a 10.
Being that it is a foreign film, the cast and filmmakers will be a bunch of people that you probably have never heard of, but I’m going to list them anyway.
It was written and directed by Gareth Evans. The main stars of the film are Iko Uwais, Joe Taslim, Donny Alamsyah, Yayan Ruhian, Pierre Gruno, Ray Sahetapy, Tegar Satrya, Iang Darmawan, Eka ‘Piranha’ Rahmadia, and Verdi Solaiman.
I rate this movie a 9 on a scale of 1-10.
Buy, rent, or run? Buy.
Click on the link below to check out the teaser trailer to the sequel to The Raid: Redemption, it’s called The Raid 2: Berandal (2014).
If you liked The Raid: Redemption, then you will probably enjoy:
Dredd (2012)
Dredd (2012)
Clever, yet cheesy and intriguing artistic special effects give Dredd a late 1980s or early 90s feel. This is fitting and obviously intentional because Dredd (2012) is sort of a remake of Judge Dredd (1995). The distant future in Dredd (2012) feels similar to what filmmakers in the 80s and 90s thought the distant future would be like. So, in a sense, the movie takes you back in time but to their future.
The entire film seems to be a satire on the action movie era during the time when Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Bruce Willis ruled the genre. No acting skills are necessary, only gratuitous amounts of bloody, gory violence, corny one-liners, and an endless supply of bullets. Of course, the main characters are severely outnumbered and always appear to be bulletproof, while countless numbers of bad guys get obliterated. It is absolutely a popcorn movie.
It was mildly humorous, but quite entertaining throughout to watch a movie that mocked it’s out genre. It’s almost as if the creators wanted to prove that they could do a better job at 80s and 90s filmmaking than the actual filmmakers of the 80s and 90s. Adding a little twist to that concept, the movie went back and forth between cheap special effects and present day awesome special effects.
The cheap technology was used during most of the very gruesome scenes and as a result, those scenes were easier for the viewer to watch because the overuse of blood and gore would make the scene look pretty fake. There was the occasional scene that looked awfully realistic and it would sort of sneak up on you.
The main character (Judge Dredd) was played by Karl Urban, but it didn’t really matter because he wore a mask the entire movie and you never saw his face. Anybody could have been under that mask. Urban did supply his character with a high-quality tough guy voice, to his credit. Have you ever heard of the guy though? Me neither. He is a character actor whom I would recognize, but has never been important enough to remember.
I think that Dredd is worth watching as long as you know what you are getting yourself into. Don’t expect much and you might be pleasantly surprised. It’s not great, but it is enjoyable.
I rate this movie a 6.5 on a scale of 1-10.
Buy, rent, or run? Rent.
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