The Raid: Redemption

Buckle up: Over the course of its breathless 100 minutes, the Indonesian action film The Raid: Redemption never stops. Probably 60 percent of the movie is a fight of some kind—a blitzkrieg of gunfire, machetes and martial arts. It’s not the kind of poetic kung fu you might see in a Jackie Chan film or even the more raw Bruce Lee flick: This is concussive stuff. The story is pretty bite-sized: Cops raid an apartment building to go after a drug lord and his thugs. That’s it. There’s no subplot, no character development and no asides. Director Gareth Evans is to be applauded for making it so simple and keeping the focus on the orgy of video-game violence. Quite a rush, really.