4. The Raid: Redemption
Director Gareth Evans has created a hands down insta-classic with his Indonesian action film The Raid: Redemption.
Depicting the martial arts form known as Pencak Silat, fight coordinators/actors Iko Uwais and Yayan Ruhian orchestrate a jaw dropping symphony of brutality, choreographing sequences like I’ve never seen before. Sure, I’ve witnessed some heavily stylized martial arts films in my day, but none have ever got my heart pumping like The Raid: Redemption‘s unrelenting assault of action.
As a small anecdote to prove my point, let me quickly outline a particular occurrence which seriously happened at my local screening. Honest!
Showing at the closest AMC theater, only three groups of people showed up to see Evan’s masterpiece on a late Tuesday night. There was my friend and I, a young couple sitting about ten rows in front of us diagonally to the left, and a group of drunk teenagers sitting back about ten rows from us again diagonally to the left. After about twenty minutes, the dude with his girlfriend is looking around, visibly irritated for reasons unknown to me. Then all of a sudden, in a moment of Hulkified rage, the macho alpha male jumped up and turned screaming “I SWEAR TO GOD THE NEXT F#CKING PIECE OF POPCORN TO HIT ME I’LL COME BACK THERE AND KICK THE EVER LOVING SH*T OUT OF ALL OF YOU!”
In any other movie, I would have rolled my eyes and ignored the outburst, based on the obvious fact that his comment should have only been directed towards the group of kids ducking down in their row giggling incessantly.
Instead, I felt my fist clutch and tempers flare, ready to roll off a witty comment towards the guy interrupting my cinema experience. How dare he!
Good thing I snapped back into reality and was released from The Raid: Redemption‘s brainwashing, reminding myself that the jacked dude quadruple my size wearing a skin-tight UFC t-shirt would have cleaned the floor with my moppy hair. Plus he was in the right, and shouldn’t have to deal with immature theater patrons who deserved said beating fully.
Thankfully, the remainder played out with no more interruptions and a brutal crisis was averted, but for a brief moment of falsified courage, The Raid: Redemption‘s hypnotic testosterone inflated trance almost got me senselessly pummeled into oblivion.