Your enjoyment of The Raid may well depend upon your tolerance for violence, and as such this review is very much the opinion of this writer – any number of readers are likely to enjoy it far more than I did: I am, perhaps, just a little too squeamish. For The Raid is one of the most relentlessly violent, action packed films ever to explode onto a cinema screen, throwing the viewer right into the mêlée within the first 15 minutes. And once it gets going, it doesn’t really stop, moving at a (literally, in some cases) breakneck pace that only slows up once or twice to let you catch your breath. Although don’t rest easy, as more violence is just around the corner.
The good news is that if you like your action movies hardcore it doesn’t get any better than this. Director Gareth Evans, along with choreographer and star Iko Uwais, have upped the ante on every fight scene ever with the sheer inventiveness and variety with which they approach the many, many brawls featured. Smashed light bulbs, truncheons, barrels and shattered doors are all used as weapons at various points, not to mention gravity which often proves to be deadliest. But this is not Jackie Chan slapstick: every punch, slice and rip hurts, not a single move feels arbitrary. Using the dilapidated old tower block itself as a character, the variety of settings – a drug den, a cramped corridor and two rooms on top of each other – ensures that although the film consists almost entirely of fighting, it rarely feels repetitive or unoriginal.
Part of the appeal of these scenes is the enigmatic figure of Iko Uwais. Playing probably the most badass rookie cop ever, his young, innocent face and restrained performance somehow add power to the violence he is able to accomplish. Also, as the one beacon of light in a tower block full of darkness, it’s essential for the film’s survival to have someone to root for. There’s not a whole lot of ACTING for him to do, but he handles his few scenes where he isn’t kneeing someone to death well.
Yet at the end of the day this film is just one big fight, and lots of people end up dead. Some readers may be salivating with anticipation at the thought of a 100 minute battle between cops and drug lords, for others it could just end up being nauseating. It is a fight (mostly) of good versus bad, but that barely takes away from the fact that our entertainment is being provided by people being hurt in several inventive ways. It’s at times incredibly difficult to stomach, and it is so unrelenting that one begins to question if there is a purpose to it all. It feels remarkably shallow and exploitative to craft a film entirely around people dying in a variety of ways, and whilst many will not have a problem with that, I found it impossible to enjoy. By around about the thirty seventh stabbing (probably somewhere like twenty minutes in) I began to wonder what the point of it all was. 80 minutes later I was still in the dark.