Pulling a trigger is like ordering a takeout.

The Raid

(2011)

Gareth (Huw) Evans' film mostly lives up to the hype. The first two-thirds, in particular, are a dazzlingly confident display of breakneck tension and non-stop action. The contribution of composers Mike Shinoda and Joseph Trapanese to this shouldn't be understated. Their synth score is mesmerising, and articulate enough that they know when to allow the sound to drop out completely to punctuate a scene or lend it an almost fevered, dream like quality.

The opening scenes reminded me off the unsettling atmosphere of early John Carpenter (Assault on Precinct 13, Escape from New York), where you can feel the brooding violence about to burst open. And, when it comes, it's a relentless torrent, giddily adrenalising in choreography and editing. The level of violence has been much-discussed, but Evans isn't particularly interested in lingering on blood and gore (except where it raises tension; the scene where Rama is pinned in place with a machete cutting into his cheek is heart-stopping).

Where The Raid can't quite reach the heights of the all-time best action movies is terms of characterisation and plotting. Evans ensures his script has a number of twists that prevent there being a burn-out from wall-to-wall action. And Iko Uwais is an intense but taciturn presence in the lead role. But the film misses that extra spark, particularly in the final act, where the violence becomes more personal and the character interaction more significant. I'd go as far as to suggest that the two-on-one fight with Yayan Ruhian's Mad Dog is only partially effective. It's clearly designed to be a showstopper, but you're left wondering what the other opponent of Mad Dog is doing when he's dealing with just one. Because the film stops in its tracks for the spectacle, the scene draws attention to its deficiencies in terms of character and narrative. It also seemed that, having been such an endurance test at the outset, accessing drug lord Tama's lair ultimately proves too easy.

The Raid was shot on digital, but rather than looking distractingly pristine as some such films can, this is sometimes a bit noisy and murky (perhaps down to the Blu-ray transfer).

****

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She writes Twilight fan fiction.

Vampire Academy (2014)
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I can only presume there’s a never-ending pile of Young Adult fiction poised for big screen failure, all of it comprising multi-novel storylines just begging for a moment in the Sun. Every time an adaptation crashes and burns (and the odds are that they will) another one rises, hydra-like, hoping…

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Out of Africa (1985)
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Django Unchained (2012)
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Rejoice! The broken are the more evolved. Rejoice.

Split (2016)
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Shyamalan has seized on a horror staple – nubile teenage girls in peril, prey to a psychotic antagonist – and, no doubt with the best intentions, attempted to warp it. But, in so doing, he has dragged in themes and threads from other, more meritable fare, with the consequence that, in the end, the conflicting positions rather subvert his attempts at subversion…

If you could just tell me what those eyes have seen.

Alita: Battle Angel (2019)
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Roma (2018)
(SPOILERS) Roma is a critics' darling and a shoe-in for Best Foreign Film Oscar, with the potential to take the big prize to boot, but it left me profoundly indifferent, its elusive majesty remaining determinedly out of reach. Perhaps that's down to generally spurning autobiographical nostalgia fests – complete with 65mm widescreen black and white, so it's quite clear to viewers that the director’s childhood reverie equates to the classics of old – or maybe the elliptical characterisation just didn't grab me, but Alfonso Cuarón's latest amounts to little more than a sliver of substance beneath all that style.

Life is like a box of timelines. You feel me?

Russian Doll Season One
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Starship Troopers (1997)
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You use a scalpel. I prefer a hammer.

Mission: Impossible - Fallout (2018)
(SPOILERS) The latest instalment of the impossibly consistent in quality Mission: Impossible franchise has been hailed as the best yet, and with but a single dud among the sextet that’s a considerable accolade. I’m not sure it's entirely deserved – there’s a particular repeated thematic blunder designed to add some weight in a "hero's validation" sense that not only falls flat, but also actively detracts from the whole – but as a piece of action filmmaking, returning director Christopher McQuarrie has done it again. Mission: Impossible – Fallout is an incredible accomplishment, the best of its ilk this side of Mad Max: Fury Road.

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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