the halo equation: February 2014

The Raid: Redemption is a film about the hardships of maintaining a relationship and pursuing a career in a highly competitive field. Through a series of vignettes, mostly set in the homes of the lead protagonists as they balance personal and professional life, the viewer becomes witness to the joys and failures of the ensemble cast, sometimes without a word spoken between characters for several minutes because a simple closeup on their haunted eyes, or a gentle sigh accomplishes more than words or even action can ever hope to.

Hah, I'm just jerking you around! Can you imagine the pain I'd go through reviewing a movie as boring and pretentious as that? No thanks, friend-o. The Raid is actually a hyperactive martial arts flick from Indonesia. It's like Saw meets The Warriors meets the 80s Nintendo game "Bad Dudes". You know, the game that challenged your manhood by asking: "Are you a bad enough dude to rescue the president?" Well let me assure you, once the generics/red shirts from Team Law have been wiped out in this movie, you're left with some pretty bad fucking dudes.

But they're not out to save the president in this movie. Their mission is to go into this high rise building and arrest an infamous crime boss who sublets the rooms to the scum of society. By the time the movie starts, the building is chock full of rapists, murderers, drug dealers, music pirates and people who reproduced football games without the express written consent of the NFL. This makes him the bane of the local homeowners association, so it's time for the cops to lock, load, and take this fucker down to Chinatown... Or downtown Jakarta, I guess.

The movie starts with some gunfights, but a convenient explosion either messes up the SWAT teams firearms, or they just didnt bring enough ammo. Either way, the rest of the movie is an exercise in figuring out the most brutal way to kill your enemy with bare hands and melee weapons this side of the Dark Ages. In true Game of Death style, the battle rages up the building, leaving a trail of bodies to follow in case someone loses their way (I swear we've passed that dead guy already) until a fight with the last boss and some required plot resolution.

With a basically non-existant plot, the fights are what make this movie worth the time. The main martial art used in the movie is Silat, an Indonesian martial art similar to the Filipino Martial Arts I've studied in that it was designed to kill people at close range, often with knives/bladed weapons and sticks and attacks to areas other Martial arts practitioners are often not cool with. Hey, we're little island folks; stomping on knee joints, stabbing in the thigh and dragging the blade through as many arteries as possible is how we level the playing field. Its not all fancy kung foolery on this movie either. When the opportunity presents itself, the heroes of The Raid arent above pushing their enemies people out windows or giving someone a fire axe to the chest. There were several moments where I let out that "Ooohhhh!" sound usually reserved for when somebody gets posterized in basketball.

In conclusion, if you are an aficionado of martial arts flicks, action movies, or those old video games where you walk through a city beating up everyone in your path, you'll like The Raid. And now's the time to check it out if you haven't, because the sequel The Raid: Retaliation comes out soon. Director Gareth Evans also says he's got a trilogy planned. I only hope it isnt called The Raid: Revolutions, because that didn't pan out so well for the Matrix.

Obligatory amazon shilling below! (I do not condone using the weapons below on anything other than cardboard, brush, or water bottles. I am not responsible for the actions of dumbasses. The opinions and views in this blog are not necessarily those of The Halo Equation or Ben Maniquis, even when explicitly stated that they are my views. Stop reading and watch the damn movie.)