Its an Indonesian movie but the plot could be a domestic A SWAT team raids a gangs holdout and gets more than they bargained for. The story is very close to Dredd, and I would be surprised if there were not some copyright infringement by the Dredd creators.
For a foreign film to break through the chatter and have success in North America is rare, those with subtitles jump over a higher bar. The Raid succeeds because its speaks a universal language of highly stylized violence and action. The cover of my DVD says " one minute of romance and 99 minutes of non-stop carnage" At least half a dozen minutes of that Yayan Ruhian play MAD DOG in some very intense Pencak Silat martial arts fights to the death. He would make a wonderful villain in any movie, and I really hated his character in this one. Rotten Tomates gave it 85% and for a movie that cost about a million to make made $4Mill box office in the USA alone. If action films are your genre this is a sure thing.
Three point eight stars
I have really been wanting to The Raid: Redemption because I love great martial arts action. Great review Steve!
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I havnt seen this, but the comparisons to Dredd have plagued both films. Personally I loved Dredd, and not because I read the 2000AD comics as a child growing up in the UK.
ReplyDeleteI thought Dredd was great as well. If they remade this movie with the same basic actors but added in a Hollywood star(budget) as a embedded reporter or cross agency member, it would do half a billion box office,
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