20 Reasons Why You Rock: The Raid: Redemption
Choosing a movie for a group of friends is never easy. They all have such different tastes; one guy barely lasts 20 minutes into any movie with farting, another has no patience for any language that isn’t English. Luckily, The Raid: Redemption doesn’t take long getting right into the action. It’s also lucky that those early action sequences really grab the viewer by the balls and squeeze. I remember my first watch and it was only after this fifth or sixth watch that I finally sat down to write 20 Reasons Why You Rock.
#1. SWAT about to get some. We get a quick introduction of Rama (Iko Uwais) and his motivation for what he does. Then we’re into the van with him and his SWAT-like team of cops about to raid the tower of doom.
#2. Just some bad guys being a bad guys. The head baddie has some guys lined up and ready to execute and he doesn’t waste any time in murdering the hell out of them. Gunshots to the back of the head is bad enough but just hold tight and you’ll see a death I’m sure every Home Depot employee has wished upon that annoying customer. Death by Hammer!
#3. The gangster locking down the building is wild. The cops quickly get overrun by bad dudes on every level. The men outside are sniped, the communications are cut off, and anyone able to help them are taken out. It’s a bad situation all around, folks.
#4. The Lt. lets him in on the fact that they’re alone and without any help from the outside. Anyone who has seen this and Dredd will tell you that the stories are basically the same and they’re not that far off.
#5. The hole in the floor sequence was badass. Diving through it with an axe in hand ready to go to work.
#6. I can’t say for sure that the propane tank in the fridge would work like that but who the hell cares?
#7. Rama’s first fight is great because it’s amazing and it’s the first real fist fight of the movie.
#8. Henchman #2 kills his own people in the elevator. At this point there isn’t much time spent on who he is or why he’s important but that changes when he off his comrades.
#9. The door near-decapitation is a real highlight when it comes to deaths.
#10. Mad Dog vs Taslim = Fight Heaven
#11. Rama runs into his brother and they have a good talk. Rama is trying to convince him to leave his life behind and return to normalcy. Andi is basically telling him to get out before he’s dead. Neither man is wrong in what they’re saying, they just live two very different lives at this point.
#12. Main bad guy Tama has cameras all over the building and catches Andi and Rama together. That is bad news for Andi.
#13. The drug room beatdown is great but still might be the fourth or fifth best fight scene in the movie. That’s how good many of these other fights are.
#14. Yayan Ruhian might be the smallest dude in the movie but he fights like a rabid animal. I guess that’s why his name is “Mad Dog”.
#15. The 2 vs 1 fight feels like it should have been at the very end. It’s so long and tiresome to watch. The film feels like everything after that is just unnecessary.
#16. We’ve been told for most of the film that there are some dirty cops in the department and it’s really no surprise that the Lt. is one of them. It’s more of a surprise that he goes down without much of a fight.
#17. Rama and Andi walking right out of the front door with the Lt. as a prisoner and their injured buddy in tow. Andi turns back and heads for the tower but Rama’s adventures aren’t quite done yet.
#18. The original title translated to English is “Death Raid”.
#19. It’s a total star-making performance for Iko Uwais and one that would bring him to the U.S. for small, shitty roles in Star Wars, Snake Eyes, and that shitty Mark Wahlberg movie.
#20. Another great thing about The Raid is telling people that the second film is equally awesome but in a very different way.
