'The Raid: Redemption' exhausting, astonishing and violent
The Raid: Redemption
Opens today at the State, Rave
Review by Jeff Meyers of the Metro Times
Grade: B
Take the closed-set claustrophobia of "Die Hard," add the gritty cops versus gangsters nihilism of "Assault on Precinct 13," and blend in some Indonesian machete-fu and — voila! — you have "The Raid" (the nonsensical "Redemption" was added by Sony Classics in hopes of creating a trilogy), a movie that's so in-your-face violent you come out of the theater feeling like it has smashed your head against the wall for an hour and 40 minutes.
Avoiding the stylized smash-cuts, jittery handheld close-ups and bombastic scoring of American action flicks, Welsh-Indonesian writer-director Gareth Evans backs his camera up and lets the bone-crunching, face-smashing barrage of savagery speak for itself in long, wide-frame shots that exhaust your eyeballs. The stunt work is astonishing, delivering hand-to-hand, fist-to-face choreography that is kinetic, fluid and complicated.
Read the full review here