I don’t know what people were watching when The Raid (titled The Raid: Redemption in the States) played at the 2011 Toronto Film Festival followed by a theatrical release in March of this year, but this bore of an action director’s clip reel hit me with a dull, monotonous, bludgeoning thud.
I’m not in the habit of responding to individual reviews so I haven’t read any, but it’s hard to ignore the big RottenTomatoes “Certified Fresh” label on the front of the Blu-ray or to forget everyone rushing around Toronto after the midnight screening last year praising this film up and down. Tell me, what’s so great about listening to a ton of grunting and groaning over the course of 101 minutes as The Raid moves from one action scene to the next?
Citing the work of Jackie Chan, Jet Li and Bruce Lee as his inspiration, Welsh director Gareth Evans can certainly piece together an action scene, but as far as telling a story goes, forget it. There is so little substance to this film I’m shocked anyone could last the entire running time and come away saying anything more than, “Whew, glad that’s over.”
Here, let me give you an example of how a scene plays out.
Bodies are all over the floor and blood covers the walls. Some of TAMA‘s men are still alive, but only barely.
RAMA side steps each of them, careful not to make a noise. He’s about to turn the corner when out of his left eye he sees a pack of four of TAMA’s goons, all carrying machetes. He runs. They catch him. They fight.
Uh!
Aaaaaaaaah!
Umph!
Ugh!
Eeeaaawww!
*GRUNT*
Aaaaaaaaah! Heee-yah!
RAMA punches THUG #1 who drops his machete. THUG #2, THUG #3 and THUG #4 attack, RAMA continues to punch and kick and yell.
Ahhhhhhhhh! Ho! Whoa! Oomph!
THUG #3 jumps and tackles RAMA, attempts to stab him with the machete, misses. RAMA reverses, frees himself briefly before he’s dragged down the hall by THUG #2. THUG #1 now takes a swipe with his machete, misses, and…
Aaaah!
Aaaah!
Aaaah!
Grrrrrruuuuunnnt!
Arrrreeeaaaaggh!
Aaaah!
Huh! Humph! Thwack! Humph! Egh! Hiyah!
Eeeeeeyah!
Huh! Huh! Huh! Huh!
Uhhhhh!
Mmmmph! Hurumph! Uh! Ah! Ah! Ah!
Uh!
Ah!
Eh!
Oh!
Eee!
Argh!
Uh!
Bah!
Umph!
Pow!
The scene continues for five minutes until all of the thugs are dead and RAMA walks around the corner and fights more people.
Maybe you’re reading that and thinking, Eh, what’s wrong with that? It’s a fight scene. I agree, it is a fight scene and a good one at that. Nothing wrong with it if looked at singularly. However, you take one of those five minute fight scenes and multiply it by about 20 and you have the duration of The Raid. It’s a constant stream of well choreographed grunts, groans, punching and kicking foley work with absolutely no story in-between. It’s numbing.
To exhibit why I have a problem with this, let me direct your attention to the hallway scene in Oldboy. It runs just under four minutes long and serves as a great action sequence in an otherwise dramatic film with horrific beats throughout, but also as an indication of the lead character’s resolve. Chan-wook Park doesn’t repeat the incident ad nauseum just because he thinks it’s cool or because he can. The scene plays where and how it does in an effort to serve the film.
With The Raid the film serves the action, which is to essentially say there is no film as much as there’s an outlet for action. It’s a smorgasbord of bone-crunching, bullet-to-the-head, back-breaking violence with little to no rhyme or reason, outside of a necessary existence to make sure we have a movie. Sure, they wedge a “plot” in there and serve up a silly sibling coincidence, but even video games serve up more of a story than this one cares to bother with.
Watching the special features on Sony’s Blu-ray I clicked on the “An Evening with Gareth Evans, Mike Shinoda and Joe Trapanese Behind the Music”. Shinoda of Linkin Park and Trapanese scored the film, but I was more interested in Evans talking about some of the reasons he did what he did, such as having Rama (Iko Uwais), a rookie cop who’s part of a tactical team descending on an apartment block with the goal of arresting the drug lord on the top floor, fight to the point he can’t fight any longer. He refers to this moment saying if one more person were to come at him he wouldn’t stand a chance. To Evans this evoked a sense of vulnerability, hoping the audience would care a bit more for the character as a result. Problem is, and Evans seemed to grasp this as well, we’re talking about the star of the film who just killed four guys carrying machetes and all he had was his hands. Sorry, vulnerability sort of went out the window a long time ago.
They do, however, discuss one aspect of the film I did appreciate which is the idea of a henchman that seems to truly be unstoppable and not because he’s bigger or has special powers or weapons, but just because he’s better. This, however, gets to the core of what The Raid is, it’s a clip reel of ideas ripped off from other martial arts films, which Evans freely admits his inspiration in the aforementioned conversation, thrown into one movie with only the tiniest strand of a story holding it together.
Admittedly, action junkies will probably eat this up. I consider myself someone that loves action, but I can only sit back and watch a bunch of choreographed fight scenes for so long before I get sleepy and I indeed had to pause this one about 40 minutes in for a quick five minute rest or I don’t think I would have been able to finish it.
On the cover of the Blu-ray is a quote saying, “The best action film in decades.” So maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about. Maybe this is what action films are supposed to be but I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a Jackie Chan, Jet Li or Bruce Lee film this devoid of story and substance. I haven’t seen all of their films, not by a long shot, but seeing how I’ve managed to avoid any that compare to this I consider myself lucky.
