The Raid - Never mind the subtitles

Who’d have thought that Indonisia would raise the bar when it came to action movies? ‘The Raid’ is hardly the most complicated film to review, but, if you’re into your gunplay and marshal-arts then you can’t go far wrong here. Oh, and you’ll need to be okay with subtitles.

Basically, the film is about a police raid on a towerblock containing some of the toughest (and deadly) criminals around.  And – guess what – things don’t go too well for our boys in blue.  It isn’t long before their bodies start piling up, leaving only our plucky new recruit (who just so happens to be damn good at kicking people) to survive and untangle the mess that’s quickly building up.

If you’re wondering what makes this so much better than all the other action movies out there – it’s the ‘look’ (well, for starters anyway).  It has a very professional and gritty feel to it.  The director (who, to my shame, I’ve never heard of) has obviously spent a lot of time framing each shot to give it quite a nice – almost ‘arty’ – feel.  Then there are the fight scenes – they’re meticulously choreographed and, despite being technically as unrealistic as the next marshal arts film, they are really good fun to watch.

The actors are basically cast according to their looks.  Bad people are ugly and good people have nice hair.  However, at least everyone plays their part well and, even though all the talking is subtitled, it seems that everyone can actually act as well as is required for beating people to a pulp.

There are a few twists and turns in the plot – some you may see coming, others are less obvious.  But I won’t go into them too much.  All you need to know is that, if you’re okay with subtitles and love marshal arts or action films, then you’ll enjoy The Raid (and its sequel, if you’re curious about that!).

8/10 The Force is definitely strong with this one