The Raid – Gareth Evans
Summary: An apartment building in Jakarta, Indonesia houses a drug lord and all of his gang. A S.W.A.T. team breaks into the building on an operation to wipe them out floor by floor, before reaching the boss who resides on the highest level. Undiscovered, they reach the seventh floor before an onlooker catches sight of them and warns the gang members, who spill out of their rooms to battle the team and hunt out any escapees. Running out of ammunition, the lieutenant confesses he’s not informed his superiors about the operation, meaning back-up will not arrive. The remaining S.W.A.T team members and gang members have no other choice but to fight with fists and weapons other than guns, all under the watchful cameras that are being monitored by the top floor.
My Review: A story line that sounds like it’s been snatched right out of a Sega Mega Drive game! I expected it to be low-budget, but I wasn’t expecting how well it would be executed. Filmed digitally, with some shaky hand held shots, even those factors didn’t go against the sequence of the S.W.A.T. team entering the building that would make Hollywood proud. There’s some great tense moments before it sadly slows down nearer the end, chucking in a few plot points that lacked any real back story. The finishing fight scenes wane compared to the impressive opening combats. If there was as much effort put into the second part of the film as the first then this would have made a solid and highly enjoyable action flick from the far east.
My Rating: 2/5
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