Thanksgiving is not around the corner yet, but I would like to thank to God sending Gareth Evans to Indonesia, meeting Iko Uwaiz and Ario Sagiantoro-a producer. Together they collaborate creating '
Merantau' and then '
Berandal' which is postponed because of the budget problem and then they moved the project into something small, with tiny budget but then end up in Huge Result called '
The Raid'. Long time as viewer of such lame plot of Golden Harvest-type of movies such as
Bruce Lee's, Jackie Chan's, Jet Li's Fist of Legend and
Ip Man (with all its sequels). They are martial art with ground type fighting scene but the plot seems so same and so imitated (Hong Kong even made Fist of Legend which is remake of Fist of Fury), and
Ip Man-The Legend is Born is story of real person but with very fantastic plot like spy kids, brother-sisterhood love story just like Fist of Legend.
If you need something beautiful and colourful to watch,
The Raid definetely is not your movie. Go watch
Hero or
The Curse of Golden Flower. You should forget to find a good guy flying or standing on bamboo leaves like Chow Yun Fat did in Ang Lee's movie because what
The Raid gives you are dark scenes, sweats, breath and scream as sound effect, blood and tense.
I would like to remind everybody who judge The Raid because of the poor plot whatsoever and then give this movie one star of five (notably Roger Ebert). I cannot expect Disney's movies with complicated plot either or suggest alternate ending for Pocahontas e.g. the boyfriend got back and slaughter all vilage people. It will be memorable, right? But Disney has its own viewers for such kind of movies just like The Raid is waited by a crowd of martial art lovers.
The Raid is just a movie, action one for action addicts. It's like online game with no boobs around. It's for entertaintment only, no purpose to teach you about philosophy. If The Raid delivers messages of loyalty, sacrifice or brotherhood, believe me it's collided inside without too much consideration whether you will care or not. When it comes as your adrenaline releaser, it succeeds anyway!
The story as simple as people around youtube tell you : a failing raid. You enter this building with a belief that you can handcuff this super kingpin and then you find out that you're trapped there and you have two options: kill or be killed!
Since this is Gareth Evans' 2nd commercial production, so please forgive him for so many flaws filling this masterpiece.
Flaws :- What is exactly number of floors of the building? 15, 30 or 18 just like in the poster tells?
- Sergeant, Liutenant is not common police rank in Indonesia anyway. We left it for military officer only years ago
- Illegal Raid : as the good cop, should Jaka brings out his cute and good looking buddies raiding without official order (with papers)? No ammunition, bullets, guns, car and drivers will be allowed out of headquarter without stamped papers. Jaka didn't even call for back up and was willing to die with all his men even calling the cop if you're in danger is rights for any Indonesia citizen, especially if you're cop...
- Weird Indonesian Languange : it's correct, sounds perfect and well translated in subs but it's not common words Indonesian will use especially when we are chased by villains. It's too poetic and so unreal even with all street talks and its inappropriate words
- Wooden Floor in concrete building? I'll send protest to the developer if I am the owner of that flat. But since it's managed by Tama Riyandi (who can kill after sucking noodle) I'll go quiet and let a police officer finding axe to break it.
- Stupid Drivers: they wait for the raid finish and spending the time reading and chatting. OMG! Do you think it's One Direction or Justin Bieber's Concert?
- Chopstick or spoon? a regular family with butter knife to pull out the bullet but doesn't have kitchen knife? Indonesian prefer kitchen knife than chopstick or butter knife
- Andy's strange character: he is a brainy one but he's billain as well. Look at his neat flat! He has pink rice cooker and clean kitchen. He eats rice regularly!
Of course the good things about this movie dance around
The Beauty - Realistic Scenes especially when it's about fighting ones
- Thriller and Tense Riser movie
- The most creative ways of killing people are laid here!
- Acting of Ray Sahetapy, Tama's character
- Camerawor ks
- Editing
- SimplePlot
- CGI : it's not obvious that's make this more impressive!
- Machette Gank performance
- All Fighting Scenes
I will not rate this movie anyway, you should go and watch this movie, alone, together with your buddies. It saves your money anyway since you don't have to watch any action movies for long time, at least until its sequels released.........