THE RAID: REDEMPTION is one of those films that lives up to the fantastic trailer.  It is a combination of martial arts, gun fights, and knife fights in this furiously paced action film.   It doesn't waste much time getting the action going and getting the SWAT police in trouble.   There are brief pauses between the action scenes at times to have the audience catch their breath.  

 

The film centers around a SWAT team that raids a building to capture drug lord Tama only to have things go wrong around the sixth floor of the building.  Two groups of SWAT members try to escape from the building which has become a deathtrap for the SWAT team.    One of the SWAT members, Rama, is a rookie who has a pregnant wife and his own reason for being on the raid while Sergeant Jaka and Lieutenant Wahyu are the ones who are in command of the raid.   The film goes back and forth between the cops and the criminals.   You see how over their heads that the cops are and how brutal the criminals are.   The body count rises and the bullets run out which leads to lots of martial arts and knife fights. 

 

THE RAID: REDEMPTION is one of the best action films I have seen this year.  It is an energetically paced film which the only fault is the shaky camera style during some of the fight scenes.  Even though it has subtitles, the action is king in this film and you should go watch this movie when you get the chance.  The mix of Silat (a form of martial arts) and gunplay along with Garth Evans carefully directed/ choreographed action sequences are what any action fan should see THE RAID for.

 

SPECIAL FEATURES:

The Blu-ray features the movie with the original Indonesian score and the score by Mike Shinoda and Joseph Trapanese.   Even though both scores have their strengths, I think Shinoda’s score is better.

 

The feature audio commentary with Writer/ director Gareth Evans has a mix of talk about the production and the stories and characters in addition to mentioning how the end plants seeds for the sequel and how one scene’s sound look came together due to an accident of not turning the sound and music track on.

 

The filmmaker video blogs takes the viewer behind-the-scenes as the actors go to SWAT boot camp and the filming of various scenes in addition to a look at how they used a combination of real locations and studio sets.

 

The making of the music with Mike Shinoda and Joseph Trapanese takes a look at how the score came together despite Shinoda’s busy schedule with Linkin Park as they strayed from the guitar sound and use electronic sounds and approached the score as sound design at times.  It is a better featurette than the 1 ½ minutes Inside The Score which acts as a trailer for the soundtrack.  

 

An Evening with Gareth Evans, Mike Shinoda, and Joseph Trapanese is a 40 minute discussion in front of an audience as they talk about the making of the film and the score in addition to answering audience questions.   This featurette shares some of the same stories as the video blogs and the audio commentary.

 

Rounding out the extras are the theatrical trailer (I wish they also included the first theatrical trailer which didn’t feature the reviewer quotes and I think is better than Sony Pictures Classics trailer), access to stream or download an Ultraviolet copy of the movie, a claymation homage to THE RAID called Claycat’s THE RAID, and a TV spot that imagines the movie as an 1994 Japanese anime show.

 

FINAL ANALYSIS:    THE RAID (aka THE RAID: REDEMPTION) is one of the most awesome action films I have ever seen.  The Blu-ray does have a nice assortment of extras even though it does miss out on the first theatrical trailer.  I can’t wait to see the sequel.

 

This review is (c)8-21-2012 David Blackwell and cannot be reprinted without permission.  send all comments to feedback@enterline-media.com