The special features add up to just as sweet of a package as the film itself, especially the commentary track and the various featurettes. The Raid: Redemption is the sort of visceral action extravaganza best viewed in a group setting so you can all have a blast letting out collective “oohs”, “ahs”, and “holy shits!” It may not be for everyone, but for the people it is for, it’s one of the best of its kind to come along in years.
THE RAID BLU RAY MOVIE
The fact that I felt drained watching an action scene is one of the many reasons why watching a movie like this will make you realize so much of what is missing from action movies these days.
When the final showdown with Mad Dog was over, I felt exhausted just watching the three of them go at it for so long. Mad Dog looks like a shorter, sleazier Al Leong, and he’s such a badass, preferring fisticuffs to gunplay, he’ll happily give the good guys a 2-on-1 advantage if it means they might actually be able to give him a challenge.
The main bad guys are a trio of tried and true villainous archetypes: the scummy criminal overlord without an ounce of humanity, a younger, brains-behind-the-operation lieutenant with ulterior motives, and a ruthless enforcer known as “Mad Dog” because that’s precisely what he is. Though he sometimes seems superhuman in the feats he performs and his ability to eliminate multiple adversaries at a time in close quarter combat, he’s not superman: He can be hurt and would have perished on more than one occasion if not for the help of others. He’s an everyman except for his lightning fast martial arts reflexes. Looking like Dev Patel’s ass-kicking older brother, Indonesian martial arts sensation Iko Uwais stars as Rama, your basic everyman action hero risking his own life to protect his friends while longing to get home alive to his very pregnant wife. Those not killed in the initial counterattack have only two options: continue pushing forward and take down the crime boss or try to find some way, any way, out of this building and regardless of which direction they choose, bad guys are coming at them from around the corner, behind the door, outside the window, dropping through the floors and ceilings. Just when it can’t get any worse for this SWAT team, they discover their little raid is so far off the books nobody knows where they are or will come looking for them anytime soon. If Jason Voorhees were stalking an Indonesian summer camp, he’d successfully kill one counselor and then everyone else at the camp would whip out their machetes and hack him to pieces. More machetes are used in this movie than in Machete. Indonesian bad guys may run out of guns, but they’ll never run out machetes. If there’s one thing I learned from watching this film, it’s that everyone in Indonesia owns a machete.
THE RAID BLU RAY FREE
When the crime lord gets on the loud speaker to inform his tenants, almost all of which are lowlife criminals, that anyone who kills a cop gets free rent for life, the chaos to follow sometimes takes on the veneer of a 28 Days Later zombie flick if the zombies were machete-wielding maniacs possessing a modicum of kung fu prowess. Halfway up their plan goes to hell and they find themselves trapped, fighting for their lives with armed henchmen hunting them with snipers outside the building just waiting for them to stick their heads out. It’s just incredible pulse-pounding action choreography connected by a simplistic – possibly too simplistic for some viewers – kill or be killed plotline.Ī SWAT team is sent in to raid a multi-story apartment complex controlled by a ruthless crime boss operating out of the top floor. This isn’t a special effects blockbuster. Edwards has combined the classic Die Hard scenario with vintage Hong Kong-era John Woo gunplay and bone-crunching martial arts of the Tony Jaa variety to craft a white knuckle love letter to hardcore action movie fans.