Thursday, October 17, 2013

The Raid: Redemption - 2011 - 3½ Stars

Actors:  Iko Uwais, Joe Taslim
Director:  Gareth Evans

One of the virtues of a great action film is lack of exposition - I always admired Predator's ability to get us right into the chopper with Arnold, Jesse, Carl, and all the rest in less than five minutes.  The Raid: Redemption doesn't quite achieve that level of elegance, but it's awful close.  What follows that tiny bloodless beginning is a smorgasboard of punches, kicks, stabs, and gunshots.  All manner of death and dismemberment are on display.  The film throws in some exposition midway through and it becomes a bit of a grind at the end - likely a product of the lack of character development at the beginning.  Still, American action films should take a hint - your movie doesn't need to be 150 minutes to be awesome.

This is an Indonesian film - make sure you see this before you see An Act Of Killing, or you'll think Indonesia is filled with bloodthirsty monsters.

No comments:

Post a Comment