By Malice Intended
The action genre devours and recycles content at a prodigious rate. As new techniques and plot devices are developed, they are immediately aped and imitated into oblivion. In the span of only a few years, what was once fresh and innovative becomes cliché. This creates an audience that is always chomping at the bit for something new. Since there are essentially no new stories to tell, filmmakers have to find endless variations on old tropes and standards. Foreign filmmakers have become especially adept at this. In the last ten years alone, mixed martial arts and parkour have been increasingly integrated into traditional action choreography. That evolution has yet to plateau, as every year seems to bring forth some delightful new oddity from such far off territories such as Southeast Asia. The latest of these is a fearsome little number simply titled The Raid.
A crime lord takes up residence in the slums of Jakarta. He converts an entire apartment block into an impenetrable fortress. From his top floor apartment he monitors all activities within via closed circuit television cameras that have been placed throughout the building. He needs no elaborate or highly trained security force, as the buildings residents offer the best collective defense unit imaginable. They are, in fact, all criminals themselves. They also don’t take kindly to intruders or those that mean the big boss harm. When 20 SWAT team members stage an ill-advised raid on the structure, they incur the wrath of every nefarious character that resides therein. Bloodshed expectedly ensues as the hapless cops attempt to carry out their mission.
Like many action films before it, The Raid borrows liberally from both A-list and B-List genre classics. Though Nino Brown never actually lived in The Carter, the idea of converting an apartment complex for less than honorable purposes is right out of New Jack City. The idea of cops having to wage war with terrorists in an enclosed space (namely a building), is of course from Die Hard or even Hard Boiled. The conceit of requiring said cops to clear each floor of the complex like stages in a video game? Game of Death(Specifically Bruce Lee’s original concept for the film, which was The Silent Flute). This is not uncommon, as many trendsetting and groundbreaking films of the past have pilfered those that came before them. The Matrix is a good example.
What characterizes The Raid as being more than just a pastiche of high concept plots and concepts from decades past? The insane tone of the trailer makes the film look like nothing that has ever graced a movie screen before. The carnage displayed in the space of barely two minutes is simply staggering. Characters are dispatched via gunfire and hand to hand combat. These confrontations unfold in a number of ways, all of which take place within closed and cramped quarters. The extremely limited amount of space in no way limits the stunt men’s acrobatic inclinations. They treat the setting as a veritable jungle gym. The same can be said of the gunplay, as characters are perforated with bullets in a variety of ways.
The Raid appears to be an action extravaganza the likes of which American studios would never have the balls to make. The makers of the film apparently know their audience well, and are all too happy to oblige even the most vulgar and outlandish indulgence. The trailer harkens back to the days when the Hong Kong action cinema was still a curiosity to American audiences. Films like The Killer, Hard Boiled, and Police Story were nothing short of a revelation to Western viewers during the 80’s and 90’s. They opened the door to a whole new world where the laws of physics rarely applied. The Raid looks to be in that same tradition. One can only dream.
Follow Malice Intended on Twitter @ http://twitter.com/renaissance1977
Follow Us on Twitter @ http://twitter.com/planetill
Join Us on the Planet Ill Facebook Group for more discussion
Follow us on Networked Blog
