Following the international success of their first film together, the 2009 action film Merantau, Welsh writer-director Gareth Huw Evans and rising Indonesian action star Iko Uwais reunite for The Raid: Redemption, which, for those of you wondering, is not a sequel to an earlier film, despite the misleading title.
In fact, it’s a low-budget, lean and mean prequel of sorts to another, costlier film that the duo had in mind as their follow-up to Merantau that proved trickier to find proper financing for.
Here’s the premise: An elite special-forces team infiltrates a low-income, 15-story high-rise tenement that doubles as the base of operation for a big time local crime lord named Tama (an appropriately badass Ray Sahetapy), whom the team is there to take down, and who also owns the tenement. Once word gets out about the team’s presence, Tama invites all of the building’s residents to declare open war on the team in exchange for free room and board.
Suffice it to say, a lot of the residents are hardened criminals themselves and are all too happy to take their landlord up on his rather generous offer.
Not surprisingly, several members of the team are picked off with a few notable exceptions, including a veteran officer (Pierre Gruno), the team’s dedicated leader Jaka (Joe Taslim) and a talented rookie, Rama (Uwais), who’s determined to get a wounded colleague out alive and to return home to his expectant wife in one piece.
Having played at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival to great acclaim (the film won the festival’s Audience Choice Midnight Madness Award), and having played to equally enthusiastic crowds at both Sundance and South by Southwest (SXSW) earlier this year, The Raid: Redemption is just what fans of stripped down, go-for-broke action fare have been waiting for.
As was the case with Merantau, the little-known Indonesian martial art of Pencak Silat is heavily featured in the film. Guns, machetes and any number of other weapons are used throughout as well, but the emphasis is squarely on the hand-to-hand fighting style that will inevitably gain more popularity stateside.
Unapologetically brutal (and bloody), The Raid: Redemption is in no way a first date flick, nor is it kid-friendly. No, this is a film made by adult for adults that walks an agreeable line between its Eastern and Western sensibilities. Even moviegoers who aren’t fond of reading subtitles will be appeased by the film’s visuals, swift pacing and wall-to-wall action sequences.
Influenced by tense, taut action-oriented predecessors like Die Hard and Assault on Precinct 13 – wildly successful thrillers that were primarily set in one location – The Raid: Redemption follows in their enviable footsteps by nimbly tightening the noose, and ramping up the action as the story progresses onward and upward. Evans throws in a couple of interesting plots twists, the most effective of which reverberates over the remainder of the film.
If the receptive audience I saw the film with is any indication, Evans and Uwais – the latter of whom helped to choreograph much of the film’s martial arts action with an assist from co-stars Taslim and Yayan Ruhian (who’s mesmerizing as Tama’s chief “mad dog” henchman) – will have zero problem securing financing for the ambitious pet project that spawned this visceral marvel which has itself already spawned a proposed US remake.
In Indonesian, with English subtitles.
Grade: 3.5 stars (out of 5)
Stars: Iko Uwais, Joe Taslim, Donnny Alamsyah, Yayan Ruhian, Pierre Gruno, Tegar Satrya and Ray Sahetapy
Directed By: Gareth Huw Evans
Written By: Gareth Huw Evans
Produced By: Ario Sagantoro
Distributor: Sony Pictures Classics
Rating: R, for strong brutal bloody violence throughout, and language.
Running Time: Approximately 100 minutes
Website: www.theraidmovie.com
Budget: 1.1 Million
Genre: Action/Crime/Thriller
Release Date: April 13, 2012
