Think The Raid will go down as the film I disliked most in 2012 and probably longer. It's not that it is badly made indeed the fight choreography is quite incredible, it's just that for me a well done fight scene doesn't a film make.
In fact if you don't like fighting, which I don't particularly although I can tolerate a bit when absolutely necessary, then there is no reason whatsoever to see this film. It is essentially one long fight scene after another as a group of police try to take down a gang boss who has taken up residence in a tower block where he leases apartments to criminals.
There are fights with guns, fights with knives and other sharp objects and lots of martial arts fighting. Take it all away and you are probably left with about 20 mins of plot.
I nearly left several times and only the hope that, as it seems to have wowed critics and done so well on the festival circuit, it would get more interesting. It didn't.
It is extremely violent throughout but the extent of the violence meant that rather than looking into my lap as I would normally I became quickly desensitised. It felt gratuitous and well just boring after a while.
I know I'm most likely not the target audience so take everything I write with a small pinch of salt but you can't say I didn't give it a try. It's getting 10% from me. On IMDb it has 81% with a Metacritic score of 73% and on Rotten Tomatoes it has 83% from critics and 92% of site visitors gave it three and a half stars or more. So what do I know?
Comments