The Raid

It may be Iko Uwais tak­ing a beat­ing up there on screen, but there’s only one per­son real­ly get­ting their ass kicked in The Raid: you. Gareth Evans’ deliri­ous­ly vio­lent Indone­sian action flick will leave you bruised and breath­less, feel­ing every splin­tered bone and snapped neck as if it was your own.

Tick-tock. It begins with a close-up of a watch and a gun, imme­di­ate­ly estab­lish­ing Evans’ pre­oc­cu­pa­tion with speed and vio­lence. The plot is light­ly sketched – a rook­ie SWAT team is dis­patched to take down a 15-storey ten­e­ment hous­ing the worst of the city’s crim­i­nal under­world. At the top, pre­sid­ing over this shad­ow state, sits Tama (Ray Sahetapy), a pre­vi­ous­ly untouch­able mob boss now being tar­get­ed by ques­tion­able ele­ments with­in the city’s police force.

But this raid will not go to plan. Strand­ed in hos­tile ter­ri­to­ry, out­num­bered, out­gunned and scared out of their minds, the SWAT team faces anni­hi­la­tion. Step for­ward Rama (Uwais), a cherub-faced wreck­ing-ball pre­pared to do what­ev­er it takes to get back home to his preg­nant wife. And yet, befit­ting this film in which the rules of the game are hint­ed at but nev­er ful­ly under­stood, a par­al­lel sto­ry unfolds.

Because The Raid is not just an assas­si­na­tion attempt; it’s a res­cue mis­sion. ​“I’ll get him back,” says Rama to an old man as he leaves his house. By the end of the film you’ll be left to judge for your­self: who has been saved? And, more to the point, who has been played?

These, of course, are back­ground con­sid­er­a­tions, as is The Raid’s sly com­men­tary on Tama’s crim­i­nal enter­prise. From his per­spec­tive, this is noth­ing more than an epic arm wres­tle for con­trol of a lucra­tive busi­ness – a mur­der­ous­ly hos­tile cor­po­rate takeover in which rev­enue streams run with blood.

But it’s the fore­ground that counts as Evans and Uwais intro­duce the west­ern world to silat, Indonesia’s native mar­tial art, the kind of flu­id fight­ing sys­tem that makes Tony Jaa’s Muay Thai look like a drunk­en post-pub rum­ble. Togeth­er, Evans and Uwais (along­side Yayan Ruhi­an, who plays Tama’s arch enforcer, known only as ​‘Mad Dog’) have chore­o­graphed some of the most jaw-drop­ping fight scenes ever com­mit­ted to film.

There are moments in The Raid – a throat impaled on a jagged door­frame, a point-blank exe­cu­tion, a light­ning-fast knife slic­ing a ham­string – that elic­it a phys­i­cal response. This is cin­e­ma at its most vis­cer­al – a gasp­ing, grind­ing, hap­py-slap­ping suck­er punch deliv­ered by a new star in the making.

Boy­ish­ly hand­some with the sort of decep­tive still­ness that hints at hair-trig­ger vio­lence, Iko Uwais has a nat­ur­al screen pres­ence. He’s both hunter and hunt­ed in the blood-splat­tered cor­ri­dors of the apart­ment block where wave after wave of face­less hench­men are dis­patched with fists, feet, elbows, knives, sticks and, in one of many wince-induc­ing whoop-‘n’-holler moments, an over­head light fitting.

A potent cock­tail of Tony Jaa, Jack­ie Chan and some sort of adaman­tium-enhanced X‑Man, Uwais throws him­self (lit­er­al­ly) feet-first into the action, break­ing every Health & Safe­ty statute in the book in a quest to become the ulti­mate screen fight­er. But there are grace notes and sub­tle­ty, too, hid­den in the eye of this human whirlwind.

He’s nim­bly sup­port­ed by Evans’ direc­tion. Brought up on a diet of kung-fu films in South Wales, he’s not the obvi­ous choice to kick-start the Indone­sian film indus­try, but that’s exact­ly what Evans has done.

True, you can see some of the stitch­ing in cer­tain cuts, but that’s only because Evans isn’t try­ing to hide. Eschew­ing quick edits for bril­liant lucid­i­ty, he leaves you to savour every killing blow, every death spasm. Backed by some bone-jar­ring foley work and smart­ly inte­grat­ed spe­cial effects, the result is a thrilling­ly kinet­ic but superbly ground­ed piece of cin­e­ma that win­ning­ly defies cur­rent blink-and-you’ll-miss-it action conventions.

But don’t be fooled into think­ing he’s just a point-and-shoot mer­chant. The Raid may not be over­bur­dened with nar­ra­tive, but Evans proves him­self an adept visu­al sto­ry­teller with an intu­itive grasp of pace and rhythm. The action scenes are built on an expert­ly craft­ed set-up, orches­trat­ed by Evans with the same deft­ness of touch that sees Tama manœu­vre the SWAT team into his web.

He’s cit­ed the likes of Pan­na Rit­tikrai and Sam Peck­in­pah as ear­ly influ­ences, but there’s more than a pass­ing hint of the two Johns, Car­pen­ter and McTier­nan, not to men­tion shit­storm sta­ble­mate [REC]. And yet, like Assault on Precinct 13, The Raid is often a tenser propo­si­tion when its adver­saries are off screen, heard but unseen, shapes in the dark­ness wait­ing to strike.

It’s not just ​’80s action, though. There’s an unmis­take­able video game vibe about the respawn­ing ene­mies, the weapon pick-ups, the boss bat­tles and espe­cial­ly the lev­el-up struc­ture that sees Rama ascend­ing towards a final show­down. It may be tinged with retro stylings, but this is a thor­ough­ly mod­ern action movie.

Des­tined for late-night cult sta­tus, The Raid is an irre­sistible adren­a­lin shot deliv­ered straight to the ner­vous sys­tem. It may not be one for film Catholics, for those who see cin­e­ma as a silent com­mu­nion with the gods. But for any­one who yearns for the par­tic­i­pa­to­ry thrill of the movies, Evans has cre­at­ed an unmiss­able event, one made for shar­ing in the most rau­cous atmos­phere imaginable.

Sure, The Raid may find itself ambushed by the occa­sion­al cliché, but there’s noth­ing that can stand in the way of this cin­e­mat­ic smash-and-grab.