The Raid
Directed by Gareth Evans
Written by Gareth Evans
Written by Gareth Evans
with Iko Uwais, Joe Taslim, Pierre Gruno
2011
Featuring a form of martial arts barely anyone in Britain has heard of, and emerging from a country barely anyone in Britain has seen a film from, this brutal action thriller has crashed into cinemas here like a drug-dealing teenager thrown into a filing cabinet. Other than the specific fighting style the characters are using, there’s nothing here that hasn’t been seen in a thousand action movies before. There’s the young hero whose true desire is to make it back to his family; a blustering and gung-ho team of professionals; a backdrop of corruption and urban decay; a long-lost brother; drugs; a lawless underclass; a particularly mental attack-dog henchman. There’s also a quality of execution meaning the lack of originality doesn’t matter one bit. If you don’t like films centred around violence, then you don’t need to even think about seeing this. If you appreciate imaginatively choreographed and well-filmed set pieces, performed by talented acrobats and which just happen to be massively violent, then consider this a recommendation.
The story is set almost totally within a single dilapidated apartment block in downtown Jakarta. For years, this building has been under the control of an infamous kingpin named Tama (Ray Sahetapy), who makes a fortune renting out rooms to lesser undesirables needing a nonjudgmental atmosphere and shelter from the law, Tama’s strength being such that even the police don’t want to deal with him unless absolutely necessary. Here we see one such operation, as the Indonesian equivalent of a SWAT team make their way to the high-rise with the mission of finally taking down Tama once and for all. Our hero is the dedicated and deadly Rama (Iko Uwais), a young expectant father who hides an ulterior motive, having made the promise to bring someone back from the venture – although who exactly is unclear for a long time. Perhaps because of his own secret, Rama suspects something behind the mission that they have not been made aware of, but he is ignored and they proceed. Unfortunately – inevitably – the alarm is raised and the various minions of the block are stirred to protect Tama from the invasion. Things escalate.
A skeleton-thin plot, but one expertly judged so that it keeps you interested without demanding too much attention; there are one or two satisfying twists and reversals, and the build-up to the rumble is wickedly tense. Pencak Salit, the Indonesian martial art that makes up the bulk of the film’s combat, is fantastically cinematic: a barrage of close-quarter elbows and sweeping kicks, ruthlessly using surrounding objects and structures. It's captured here with swooping and complex long shots, hopefully embarrassing the creators of lazier action films who resort to rapid-fire editing in an attempt to mask the fact they don’t have much to show. Iko Uwais is charismatic and as believable as he needs to be given the nature of the film, but mainly deserves credit for the sheer physical demands of the role. Then, so does virtually everyone on screen. This is not a film where bad guys just run towards the protagonist to be killed in an instant; almost without fail, the most minor of them has to endure some form of stunt, whether it’s being hurled lengthways against a wall or receiving multiple stab wounds over strategically painful parts of the body. Special mention goes to Joe Taslim as the team’s sergeant, Jaka. He’s the only character who gets an arc rather than a twist, and he quietly convinces as an inexperienced leader who goes from an uncertain start to providing the story’s key moment of sacrifice.
While The Raid is inarguably intended as a showcase for Salit, the makers never place showing off ahead of making a solid film. Rather than a heroic and honourable duel, the final fight is a dirty 2-on-1 brawl in favour of the good guys, ending not in a blaze of glory but with a broken light bulb; and the story concludes with a downbeat lack of fulfillment instead of a tackily predictable return to the family unit. This obviously helps set up a sequel (reportedly already in the works, and with any luck the considerably-larger-than-$1.1 million budget won’t ruin the incredible efficiency and resourcefulness in evidence here), but it also exemplifies a refusal to take the easiest route on behalf of everyone involved.
Tom
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