It’s a rare thing when an action flick comes along that can stand head and shoulders above most others, going beyond “just another action movie” territory into what teeters on being a new classic of the genre. But that’s exactly what The Raid is.
The plot is simple: A special team of police is sent in with bulletproof vests and big guns to an apartment building which has been under the control of a gang leader for a decade without the police being able to stop him. The team’s mission is to kill the gang leader but in their way is floor-after-floor of his men who are all just as much, if not more, armed.
Save for some added stuff about possible police corruption and our main hero of the police team, Rama (Iko Uwais), having a pregnant wife waiting for him at home, that’s basically all there is to the plot. And that’s absolutely fine. The Raid’s ingeniously simple premise is just a container for all manner of action blood and mayhem to ensue.
Welsh-born director Gareth Evans has delivered a film that personifies the terms action-packed and exhilarating – those sorts of descriptions are thrown around a lot but in the case of this film they absolutely apply. He keeps the pace frantic and the fighting relentless but always finding new and interesting ways to up the game as the team get further up the building and have to fend off what seems like an endless stream of bad guys with everything from machetes to machine guns to attack with.
It’s visceral and unrelenting pretty much from start to finish with rarely a moment of let-up throughout the entire thing and more than its fair share of genuinely jaw-dropping moments. It’s a testament to Evans as a director that he can keep things going at such a pace for so long while at the same time not allowing things to get repetitive or boring. If you’re in any way an action fan then you’re going to love this film as it jams about as much action as you could possibly imagine into a single movie, mixing shoot-outs with expertly choreographed hand-to-hand combat – choreographed by star Uwais – that puts most Hollywood action movies to shame. And it’s not just the sheer quantity of the action that’s astonishing but the quality of it as well – it really gets across the impact of every punch, kick, stab and gunshot that gets thrown around in a way that’s utterly thrilling to watch.
There’s also a great sense of realism to the film. Of course, there are suspensions of disbelief to be taken with any action movie but in the context of the genre the action here is realistic, both in the ins-and-outs of how the men hit/stab/shoot each other but also in the bloody representations of the consequences thereof. It’s not what you would call an outright gory movie but Evans certainly doesn’t shy away from showing the effect of someone being shot in the face or stabbed in the throat, for example, while at the same time not allowing it to become gratuitous. It’s a fine line that the film walks rather brilliantly.
Some might have a problem with The Raid being just like a video game, with a seemingly never-ending horde of baddies appearing at different levels – in this case literally levels of a building – and persistent fighting going on. But that’s exactly what’s so great about the film; it never pretends to be anything that it’s not. For what it’s aiming to be it achieves it masterfully, providing a high-octane action movie experience with, quite simply, the best action scenes to come along in quite some time. Believe the hype.
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The Raid is out in UK cinemas on May 18th.
