The Raid: Redemption

Please note the purpose of this blog is to discuss established classics that I've never seen. As such, the following is laden with spoilers.

Why So Long?
I don't generally make a point of watching martial arts films, even as a teenager they held little appeal. Martial arts films are like the tennis of the sporting world. I admire the skill of these people, the undoubted devotion to their craft and their unquestionable talent. I just find the whole affair rather boring after a while. The buzz around The Raid had it standing out, many people were admiring it as a real game changer for the genre. As too frequently happens though, this one got away from me whilst in the cinema and I almost forgot about it until it was on Film 4 one evening.


And?
One aspect of modern culture that I fail to understand is how people will use YouTube to watch someone else playing a video game. Not the novelty ones, where someone manages to complete Mario in 60 seconds through a series of heretofore unknown shortcuts, just some lad in his bedroom who's decided to film himself playing Call of Duty. Watching The Raid is very much like watching someone else play a video game. To some degree this is probably an intentional move on the part of the filmmakers, sure just look at the set-up of the whole thing.

Welsh director Gareth Evans, takes about ten minutes at the start, just to pay lip service to the idea of a set-up. Then however, our team of SWAT-like cops are in a van and we're off. High-octance, relentlessly grim, hyper-violence dominates the remainder of the running time as our hero battles his way up the building. Just like in a video game, each level appears to be populated with "harder" baddies, or at least baddies who have access to even more guns. Don't get me wrong, as I said in the intro, I have nothing but admiration for the craft. The amount of planning and rehearsal, not to mention personal injury, that must have gone into making this fireworks display boggles the mind. That's the thing with fireworks displays though, after about fifteen minutes you're ready to get the car and go home.

"Pulling the trigger is like ordering takeout...this is what its all about."

There are pieces of character in there, something I found myself almost begging the filmmakers to play with. Our lead is a muslim, his wife is pregnant and his brother is one of the bad guys. By any standard these are the basics of the character development but even these are ignored. It's weird, Dredd was released a year later and was criticised as being derivative of The Raid. That argument was ridiculous based on the release schedule alone (how long do people think it takes to make a film?) but it's also ridiculous on the basis that Dredd is a vastly superior film. It's action sequences might not have the same awe factor but at least by the time Dredd gets to the top of the building in his film, you haven't already got one eye on your twitter app. 


Will You Be Watching It Again?
Nope, but look, as I mentioned I never really got any of these films.


Has Any Light Been Shone on Some Heretofore Unknown Bit of Pop Culture?
Nope.