On the couch

If you’ve ever left the cinema eyeing up walls to jump off and do some sort of cool spinning back-kick, or finished a dvd at home and gone looking for your dumbbells so you can “get back into training”, then you’re an action film sucker and you need to see The Raid.
Everyone else should see it too, given that it is a surprisingly tense little affair – not unlike the original Assault on Precinct 13 in its sense of constant threat and paranoia. For action movie fanatics however, it might just be the most exciting thing you’ve seen in years.
Remember how The Matrix made kung fu cool? Sure, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was beautiful, balletic and other-worldly and there wasn’t a punch or a kick thrown that couldn’t be found in any number of Hong Kong flicks from the 1980s but The Matrix had a techno soundtrack, shapes and leather jackets rather than dodgy dubbing and baggy leggings.
Then came Ong Bak, the Tony Jaa-starring muay Thai film that introduced the world to the brutal brilliance of the science of eight limbs – Thailand’s national sport and a new and exciting way of dispatching bad guys on film. Who needs Rocky’s left-right combo when you could launch yourself through the air and, with a crunch of knee and slash of elbow, make John Q Badguy rue the day he stole candy from a baby?
It became kind of a trend in more mainstream films for a while too, associating your spy/superhero/anthropomorphised animal voiced by Jack Black with a distinct or exotic martial art. Batman Begins tried it with the Keysi Fighting Method and Jason Bourne had rolled-up-reading-material-fu but mostly it came across as a gimmicky part of what was probably a quality project anyway.
Not so The Raid.
Directed by the exceedingly Welsh Gareth Evans, the film takes place in Indonesia, in the heart of Jakarta’s slums. There, a police team launch an assault on the 15-story apartment block that houses the HQ of evil crime lord Tama (Ray Sahetapy).
A poorly planned operation from the start, it all goes quickly pear-shaped and the cops who survive the initial cull by the block’s bloodthirsty denizens, including rookie with a kid on the way Rama (Iko Uwais), find themselves trapped halfway up Murder Towers with dwindling ammo and no chance of back-up.
Given the quality of the fight choreography, The Raid could have easily got away with just setting up the cops in distress and letting them fight their way out with nary a plot point between beginning and end and still be a decent little flick. Fortunately for the viewer, a bit of a story sneaks in concerning why the raid was undertaken in the first place, why there’s no back-up on the way and whether Rama’s brother is willing to leave his life of crime and return to the family fold in the breathless moments between shoot-outs and ass-kickings.
While Tama hides out in his office and watches the fates of the cops captured by a multitude of security cameras, his will is carried out by his henchman, Mad Dog (Yayan Ruhian) who suffers from the worst kind of Napoleon complex and delights in beating his enemies to death rather than simply shooting them. Along with Jiminy Crickett (freaky little critter) he’s the scariest small man you’ve seen in years.
What really distinguishes The Raid from the current crop of action flicks that pop up like mushrooms after a rain shower, is the fighting. The predominant martial art of Indonesia, silat – a particularly brutal fighting characterised by the striking techniques as well as chokes and throws – is given ample room to shine through the prowess of the actors and Evans’ excellent shooting of the action.
Many of the tropes of traditional fighting flicks are also avoided with very few scenes resorting to the “two guys fight while the the rest stand around wiggling and waiting for their turn” nonsense that still blights similar but less imaginative fare.
Instead The Raid delivers action in a sort of heightened reality. Not unlike Oldboy but more raw and brutal.
Certainly not for the faint hearted, The Raid might be one of the simplest but best action films made in the last 10 years. Already, the curse of a high quality film not made in Hollywood have befallen it as both a big budget sequel and a US remake are on the cards…
Enjoy it while it lasts.