Flying fists return, Indonesian style
By Jake Coyle |
March 30, 2012, Friday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
THE film speed of 24 frames-per-second barely outruns the relentless pace of pummeling that thumps through the Indonesian martial arts flick "The Raid: Redemption."
Hollywood's eye for talent is acute for nothing so much as an action director, and in Gareth Huw Evans, it hopes to have found a filmmaker to resurrect the fist-flying genre of Bruce Lee. The Welsh filmmaker has mined the Indonesian fighting style of Silat, which he first sought out to document and then fictionalized in the little-seen 2009 film "Merantau."
"The Raid," fashioned as a prequel to "Merantau," was made with much of the same team, including Iko Uwais, who both plays our hero, Rama, and choreographed the fighting. After building buzz at festivals, it was picked up by Sony Pictures Classics, which has made the subtitled Indonesian film more palatable to American audiences by slapping on a nu-metal score by Mike Shinoda of Lincoln Park and Joseph Trapanese.
Narrative complexity is not relevant to "The Raid," which Evans also wrote and edited. It's set almost entirely in one location: a dilapidated, 15-story high rise in Jakarta.
A 20-member SWAT team is storming the building to turn out the crime lord Tama (Ray Sahetapy) who has fashioned an impenetrable lair out of the tall slum. He waits with henchmen Mad Dog (Yayan Ruhian, also a fight choreographer) and Andi (Doni Alamsyah) at his side, an army of gang members at the ready and poor tenants who will do his bidding.
Rama, who we first see working out and praying before leaving his pregnant wife for the mission, is only a rookie among the police force. They're led by the graying Wahyu (Pierre Gruno), whose motives quickly come into question from team leader Jaka (Joe Taslim, a former Judo champ).
The siege is immediately overmatched, with psychopathic gunmen raining bullets on cowering police.
As the police numbers dwindle, Rama stands apart for his fighting acumen. The battle ebbs from machine guns to machetes and ultimately to fists and feet.
The claustrophobia of the film's dingy, byzantine corridors could be taken as a metaphor for escaping omnipresent corruption (Rama may be the only decent one in the building). But any such thought evaporates in the never-ending combat.
The fighting is blisteringly paced, uncluttered by character development.
In one of the few bits of substantial dialogue, Mad Dog explains his ethos to a captive, as he lays down his gun and implores a hand-to-hand fight.
"This is the pulse," he says, looking at his bare hands. Pulling a trigger, Mad Dog sniggers, is "like ordering take-out."
"The Raid: Redemption" will offer a full meal to action-starved moviegoers, but strike most others as - for all its athletic dynamism - lacking nutrition.
Hollywood's eye for talent is acute for nothing so much as an action director, and in Gareth Huw Evans, it hopes to have found a filmmaker to resurrect the fist-flying genre of Bruce Lee. The Welsh filmmaker has mined the Indonesian fighting style of Silat, which he first sought out to document and then fictionalized in the little-seen 2009 film "Merantau."
"The Raid," fashioned as a prequel to "Merantau," was made with much of the same team, including Iko Uwais, who both plays our hero, Rama, and choreographed the fighting. After building buzz at festivals, it was picked up by Sony Pictures Classics, which has made the subtitled Indonesian film more palatable to American audiences by slapping on a nu-metal score by Mike Shinoda of Lincoln Park and Joseph Trapanese.
Narrative complexity is not relevant to "The Raid," which Evans also wrote and edited. It's set almost entirely in one location: a dilapidated, 15-story high rise in Jakarta.
A 20-member SWAT team is storming the building to turn out the crime lord Tama (Ray Sahetapy) who has fashioned an impenetrable lair out of the tall slum. He waits with henchmen Mad Dog (Yayan Ruhian, also a fight choreographer) and Andi (Doni Alamsyah) at his side, an army of gang members at the ready and poor tenants who will do his bidding.
Rama, who we first see working out and praying before leaving his pregnant wife for the mission, is only a rookie among the police force. They're led by the graying Wahyu (Pierre Gruno), whose motives quickly come into question from team leader Jaka (Joe Taslim, a former Judo champ).
The siege is immediately overmatched, with psychopathic gunmen raining bullets on cowering police.
As the police numbers dwindle, Rama stands apart for his fighting acumen. The battle ebbs from machine guns to machetes and ultimately to fists and feet.
The claustrophobia of the film's dingy, byzantine corridors could be taken as a metaphor for escaping omnipresent corruption (Rama may be the only decent one in the building). But any such thought evaporates in the never-ending combat.
The fighting is blisteringly paced, uncluttered by character development.
In one of the few bits of substantial dialogue, Mad Dog explains his ethos to a captive, as he lays down his gun and implores a hand-to-hand fight.
"This is the pulse," he says, looking at his bare hands. Pulling a trigger, Mad Dog sniggers, is "like ordering take-out."
"The Raid: Redemption" will offer a full meal to action-starved moviegoers, but strike most others as - for all its athletic dynamism - lacking nutrition.
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