7/31/2023 0 Comments The raid streamingI think you get one breather - that's it. The film is elegantly simple in its plot and the pace never lags. Plus throw in a diminutive but ferocious henchmen (Yayan Ruhian as Mad Dog, the name of a similar styled character in "Hard-Boiled") who's like an evil Energizer Bunny that just can't be stopped, and well you have a pretty tough assignment. It turns out that the tenants in the building can easily be turned into enemies out for the cops' blood and that slows the raid down considerably. When "The Raid" started and the special forces are moving into the building and handily taking over the floors, I was thinking, "How can this go on for two hours?" But it does and it does so brilliantly. "13 Assassins" is the only other film I can think of that delivers such intense action that you literally leave the theater exhausted and feeling like the combatants in the films, like you couldn't possibly raise your sword or your fist one more time. It is like extending the brutal final battle of "13 Assassins" to almost 2 hours. This is the most intense, non-stop, grueling action film I have seen in recent memory. Now he can spend the entire rest of the film on action and I'm not exaggerating. So for "The Raid" he streamlined the plot to perfection: a special forces team arrives at a building to take out a notorious drug lord on the top floor. wasted time when the action was so amazing. There were a lot of talky scenes with plot exposition about who was bad and why. "Merantau" had a formulaic but also rather sentimental plot about an honorable and naive lad alone in the big city and getting involved with a bunch of criminal types as he tries to save a young girl from sex traffickers. It just needs something to set the action in play. One of the key things Evans learned is that a good action film doesn't need much of a plot. Whatever it is, a good action film is something that I am addicted to and cannot get enough of. Sometimes that is handheld camera and fast cuts, sometimes it's a static camera and one long take, and sometimes its slow motion. The best of these also understand the action is not merely about speed, shakycam, and fast cuts but about doing what will best convey the action. So for me, a great action film offers not just an adrenaline rush but a breathtaking piece of cinematic poetry. Dance and action are all about kinetic energy and the body in motion, and therefore are perfectly suited to motion pictures. John Woo, a master of poetic action, was a huge fan of MGM musicals, and stunt man extraordinaire Jackie Chan loved dancer Gene Kelley. There's a reason people who design fights are called "action choreographers" because they too are choreographing a dance. I'm not talking about dramas that contain a scene or two of action but rather films fueled by their action - films like "Hard-Boiled," "The Seven Samurai," "The Matrix," "District B13." The action set pieces in these films are as beautiful and poetic as dance even if the content of the action is violent and bloody. For me an action film is an exquisite thing of beauty when it's done right. Sony Pictures Classics Joe Taslim as Jaka and Yayan Ruhian as Mad Dog in "The Raid."
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