The Raid: Redemption

BryantStanton

BryantStanton

Well-known member
I'm rather surprised I haven't seen any post about this film. It's been out for a few weeks, and I figured I'd be late to the party.

Here's the redband trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWlmhMSnVdM

And the imdb site:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1899353/

This is an ultra brutal/violent straight up action flick. It's been quite some time that I've had this much fun at a movie. Saw it with a group of friends knowing very little about the movie, and walked away talking about it for days. It's a rather straight forward plot: nothing is going to shock or amaze you when it comes to the writing, but the action is EXTREMELY well choreographed and is a delight to watch.

Even more impressive, I realized that (at least according to wikipedia), it shot on the AF100 and only had a budget of $1 million. You could tell it was shot on video, but the production value seemed very high, so I was surprised at the budget.

Anyway, I highly recommend this for a fun ride, especially if you're an action lover. It's pretty limited release, but there were still several theaters showing it in my city (Long Beach, CA).

Has anyone else had a chance to see it?
 
Ouch! Roger Ebert gave it only 1 star. I have to say I didn't find his review snobbish, and he acknowledges he's in the minority. But his thoughts on the film are definitely worth reading. Review here.
 
snowleopard said:
Ouch! Roger Ebert gave it only 1 star. I have to say I didn't find his review snobbish, and he acknowledges he's in the minority. But his thoughts on the film are definitely worth reading. Review here.
Click to expand...

I kind of agree with Roger. I found the film to be an utterly joyless experience. Not that I was expecting Mary Poppins. But even hyper-violent films like John Woo's The Killer have an inventive glee about them. And a plot. This was mostly an hour and a half of people I didn't care about being brutalized every which way possible. And I hated the way the movie looked. Its muted color palette didn't seem carefully calibrated, but like someone just turned the saturation knob down at the final output. I almost shut the thing off, but about 45 minutes in, the movie took a breather, something resembling characters started to develop and it was enough to sustain my interest until the end. Funnily, this is the part fans of the movie consider "boring". I was also dismayed that the first half was mostly people machine gunning each other to death, when I was expecting more martial arts. The martial arts fights were impressively choreographed and shot when they finally arrived, but I really didn't enjoy them much. I found it all very ugly to watch I guess.
 
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