Action at its best.

Film: The Raid: Redemption
Director: Gareth Evans

Cast: Iko Uwais, Joe Taslim, Yayan Ruhian, Ray Sahetapy
Genre: Action


The Raid: Redemption is gonna satisfy those nerds who have deep affection for PC games & also those who have always enjoyed Tony Jaa’s work.

Plot is like that of video game only. Platoon of local police is supposed to catch a gangster who resides in a 15 storey-building. Building is studded with loud speakers, cameras and main villain’s tapori gundas and whole film is shot in the same building. Gundas here are skilled, they know martial arts very well and they also possess weapons viz. machine guns and knives, with which they easily destroy whole platoon. Platoon of course was not capable enough to reach and grab the main villain and whole plan was actually a conspiracy but one man, Rama (played by Iko Uwais) as expected rises above the expectations of everyone, successfully turns the table and film is centered on his conviction to achieve impossible.

Length of the film is just 103 minutes and it has no dull moment. It’s all about cheese, we know it. But the way film is made, it’s just stupendous. Camera work here is purely magical; camera brilliantly takes us through and inside wall of the building. No cables, no CGI, no vfx – how hard is that to imagine in this era! But that’s how this film is made.   

Hand-to-hand fight sequences are undeniably remarkable and that’s the very main reason why this film works. Last fight portraying two vs. one is the film’s longest combat sequence and is the most excellent action sequence I’ve seen in recent times which in point of fact rejuvenates the traditional Indonesian martial-arts. All the three actors (Iko Uwais, Donny Alamsyah & Yayan Ruhian) who performed the last fight deserve a big round of applause for representing the extreme level of enthusiasm in the most authentic way.

The Raid: Redemption is bone-crunching, skull-smashing & furiously paced actioner which I liked very much and all those who love action films are sure to adore this film.   


Rating: 3.5/5