Serbuan maut
Director: Gareth Evans
Writer: Gareth Evans
Cast: Iko Uwais, Doni Alamsyah, Joe Taslim, Yayan Ruhian, Ray Sahetapy, Verdi Solaiman
Part of: Surprise movie at the /slash Filmfestival

Plot:
Rama (Iko Uwais) is a young police officer whose unit is going on a raid of an appartment building that is firmly under control of the gangster Tama (Ray Sahetapy) and filled with his armed to the teeth henchmen. At first things seem to go rather well and the first few floors are taken without much of a fuzz. But then the alarm gets raised and the shit hits the fan.

The Raid is one of those films where you grip the armrests of your seat approximately during minute 5 and won’t let go until the end of the film. It’s that tight.

The film really is very brutal – it very much reminded me of Oldboy more than once. The fight choreographies are equally beautifully done. Unfortunately they go hand in hand with the movie’s weakest point as well: the shaky cam. It got a little hard to follow the fights, especially since I’m pretty sure that the movements were sped up, too (but then again I’m such a klutz that it’s not impossible that other people are just able to move that fast).

I don’t get it. When you got fight scenes like this, the best thing to do, really, is basically keep the camera stationary and just take care that nobody falls out of the frame.

But me bitching about the shaky cam makes the movie sound bad, and it isn’t, not at all. It’s tight, it’s got a good story and, as I said, those fight choreographies are amazingly brilliant.

I also liked the washed-out colors the movie was shot in and the whole thing is rounded of with a brilliant soundtrack.

So to sum up: I’m complaining about the camera work that much because the rest of the movie is so absolutely perfect. And bad things in good movies are that much worse.

Summarising: Watch it. It’s awesome.