The Raid: Redemption (2011)

For all the international movies I watch, I had never seen an Indonesian one before. I don't recall whether I took the recommendation from Netflix or IMDb, but it looked like another Elite Squad: The Enemy Within, which I vaguely recall liking. More importantly, I felt up for an action flick.

Here a SWAT team infiltrates an apartment building run by a notorious drug lord. Alas, they go in with too little preparation (under suspicious circumstances) and underestimate his power. Before long, nobody left alive outside the building knows that the team is there, and the drug lord announces free residence for life to anyone who helps make them disappear. Gang members or not, there sure are a lot of young male tenants prepared to take up arms against the cops, who spend most of the story just trying to leave.

Only four years later, this movie feels untimely. Not many viewers today feel like rooting for the police as they invade a residence and leave a trail of bodies. One even shoots a tween in an effort to stop him from raising an alarm -- tho to be fair, the other cops despise him, and not just for that reason. What's more, the actors took training for authenticity, so apparently real Indonesian cops can be that brutal.

And you'd better believe that this is on the brutal end of the genre. The body count I've read is 121, but since many are still moving when we last see them, I can't tell how many die. The SWAT team doesn't bring enough ammo, so much of their doing involves Pencak Silat martial arts, batons, and/or machetes brought forth by tenants. At least everyone stays in one piece, not counting shed blood.

Of the characters who use martial arts, one cop looks about as unstoppable as the hero of a Bruce Lee movie. Then there's the drug lord's right-hand man, who prefers to kill empty-handed, not to be sporting so much as to have fun. He even chooses to take on two skilled brawlers at once when he could easily have taken them one at a time -- and it's a long match.

If you're not into watching M-rated video game-style combat with little plot, you may yet find a few elements to like herein. The cinematography is good, provided you don't mind muted colors (does every tenant wear brown and gray?). The score works nicely. And the few quiet moments are emotionally charged in their own right.

Nevertheless, at the risk of sounding sexist, I do not recommend this movie to women. Not only is it largely violence for violence's sake, but few women appear, none getting much screen time. They seem to exist solely as motivators for the men.