by Joseph Tiberia
The big movie release this week was The Hunger Games, however, a huge little known film came out right under the radar called The Raid: Redemption. Directed and written by Gareth Evans, a Welsh director who has worked within the Indonesian film industry, this film is possibly one of the best action scores and fight sequences in a long time.
The film is about a group of elite SWAT team members who must take down a gang controlled building and their leader. The entire film takes place mainly within the building and stars Iko Uwais, a mixed martial artist specializing in Indonesian traditional martial art, Silat.
Action films have become repetitive in the last couple of years leaving only the superhero genre to really allow any kind of interesting action story to be told. Its sad when only one kind of story telling seems to be told, popular or not. I don’t care if it makes a ton of money or if it’s a bomb. A good movie is a good movie – obviously everyone has their preference of what is good, but it’s that very preference that should make variety happen.
The fighting in the film has what I like to call many “Holy S!$#” moments because you cannot hold back some of the incredible blows that are given to and by the cops. I refuse to go into any real detail about the scenes but there were moments in the film where I said to myself “there is no way they can beat that!” and they did!
Mike Shinoda of Linkin Park and Joseph Trapanese of Tron: Legacy soundtrack remade the score for the film for the US release. The decision to have Mike Shinoda do the score is based on a recent trend in movies that filmmakers call upon legit musicians to do their scores such Hanna, Tron: Legacy, and Social Network.
Often musicians come from a different place with the music than a traditional composer; musicians might push the boundaries or accelerate the energy of a particular sequence. I also feel that musicians don’t give that typical “soundtrack” music but actual music that you could listen to completely separately.
The soundtrack for the Raid was very reminiscent of John Carpenter’s scores who often uses heavy 80’s style synthesizers and drums, while in the Raid the film uses very similar syntheses but more techno/Linkin Park style drums. The music gives the movie a fun tone against the violent and often intense music, since the film is full of grind house classic references and homage’s to that era the music carries traces of that as well specifically The Warriors and Escape from New York The music is very minimal and never overpowering (which is common among today’s films) but were used effectively by the 70’s Grindhouse.
The film is in subtitles; get over your fear of subtitles because this movie is that awesome you’ll may have to watch the movie twice to get every little thing that happens in the story but its not a bad ride the second time around.
I don’t recommend this film for the whole family because there is so much violence that it would be completely inappropriate for young kids. Tuck the kids in, let mommy and daddy watch the movie and have a blast!
Joseph S. Tiberia is a recent graduate of Adelphi University with a major in Video/Film Production. He has interned for Half Yard Production and NYC’s Face-Off comedy troupe in the past. He specializes in cinematography freelance work. Joseph is also a movie reviewer for Totalfilmnerd.com. His favorite film of all time is A BitterSweet Life.