Reviews
The Guardian
Peter Bradshaw
“It is sublimely, in fact heroically simple in its desire to deliver gasp-inducingly athletic action setpieces at all times, and the stunts and fight moves are stunning. There are times when the drum-roll of automatic fire is so deafeningly continuous it sounds like the fizz of white noise from a mistuned TV. In Enter the Dragon, Bruce Lee famously says: "We need emotional content, not anger." But frankly there seems to be an awful lot of anger here, and I can't believe that the filming ended without some pretty serious hospitalisation for everyone concerned. There really aren't many films that will have you holding clenched fists to the corners of your mouth over an hour and a half. I was forever bleating the two clipped monosyllables of shock: "Ohhhsh … " and "Ohhhhf … "”
17/05/2012
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The New Statesman
Ryan Gilbey
“In the absence of monologues, the garrulous weapons do the talking. Guns spray bullets like a lisper’s saliva. When the ammo is exhausted, the vocabulary extends to knives, swords, hammers. A man receives an axe to the shoulder, which is then used to yank him across the room. A fridge doubles as an improvised bomb in a scene that will provide a special thrill for children of the 1970s who grew up on public-information films about the hazards of the common household appliance.”
16/05/2012
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The Los Angeles Times
Gary Goldstein
“A tornado of character twists and plot complications ensues as fists fly, axes hurl, machetes slice and the walls literally come tumbling down. It's exhausting, exhilarating, riveting stuff that fans of high-octane filmmaking should not miss.”
23/03/2012
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The Daily Mail
James O'Brien
“There is a decent twist, but the film still feels like brilliantly choreographed fight after brilliantly choreographed fight culminating in some of the most unpleasantly imaginative deaths ever seen in a cinema. I absolutely loved it.”
17/05/2012
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Empire Magazine
Simon Crook
“Director Gareth Evans has pulled off something of a coup here, tempering the cartoon hysteria of Asian action cinema with a slicker, colder Western sensibility. The primitive invasion plot has just enough twists and character flips to keep you emotionally enagaged. More importantly, they double up as perfectly placed recovery points. You’ll welcome the breathers. Ultimately, it’s The Raid’s skill at reading an audience’s heart-rate that makes it such an exhilarating rush. Things become a bit of a bludgeon during a climactic fight with main hench Mad Dog — it’s at least 51 kicks and 135 punches too long, but, in the words of Nigel Tufnel, that’s just nit-picking isn’t it? ”
14/05/2012
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The Evening Standard
David Sexton
“If it’s fight! fight! fight! for you, The Raid is going to be your film of the year. For those boasting a slightly more modulated world-view, even such thrilling sequences turn dull when continued too long. There’s an immense final three-way mash up here, in a closed dungeon, between Rama, Mad Dog and Tama’s turncoat lieutenant Andi, which feels like 20 or even 30 minutes of non-stop bashing. You can see it’s a work of art in its way, quite abstract even, for all the blood and bruising, a classic of its kind, without actually caring what happens by the end.”
18/05/2012
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The Scotsman
Alistair Harkness
“A film that works like a great horror, with every cracked head, snapped limb and ripped jugular greeted with involuntary “Oofs”, “Ows” and cathartic laughter.”
17/05/2012
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Total Film
Matt Glasby
“Because Evans is more concerned with amphetamised ultra-violence than nuance, we learn about characters through clunky exposition and their fighting styles ... Although this is business as usual for the genre, it means that, unlike in Die Hard, the characters’ fates get less rather than more compelling as the film goes on, the adrenaline overload of the first half tipping towards caffeine-drink coma come the final showdown. There may be a limit to how many times you can see stratospherically talented Indonesian stuntmen panning the crap out of each other. But you won’t mind too much.”
08/05/2012
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The Independent on Sunday
Nicholas Barber
“The film has some of the most intricate, sustained and brutal martial arts sequences I've ever seen. But it's impressive even when the fists, feet and elbows aren't flying”
20/05/2012
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The Observer
Philip French
“Generally there's no moralising or sentimentality beyond the usual kind that displays of machismo inevitably reveal. Some sequences go on too long and feature unfeasible quantities of physical punishment. But Evans, who's clearly an admirer of Walter Hill, John Woo, John Carpenter and John McTiernan, maintains a fierce pace that never lets up.”
20/05/2012
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The Sunday Times
Edward Porter
“Athletic, hard-punching martial artistry can’t be taken for granted in our CGI-heavy times, and Uwais’s best scenes are excellent.”
20/05/2012
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The Daily Telegraph
Tim Robey
“I could also complain about character development, if that weren’t the equivalent of sending a pizza back because it’s not topped with Neuchâtel. So I’ll dispute the wisdom of the annoying music instead, which insists on our behalf that every ulna-shattering fight is the coolest thing ever. The Raid is a film for which the adjective “awesome” might have been invented, but it’s so awesomely awesome you might want to teach it some new words.”
17/05/2012
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Time Out
Tom Huddleston
“ The consensus is that ‘The Raid’ marks the arrival of a major talent, and given a bigger budget and a less functional, more personal script, it’s possible Evans could come up with something special. For now, count The Raid alongside the likes of Peter Jackson’s ‘Bad Taste’ or Guillermo del Toro’s ‘Mimic’: a talented young filmmaker flexing his muscles, stating his intent, and promising better things in the future.”
16/05/2012
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The Times
Wendy Ide
“Rruthless, relentless and explosively violent. It’s exhilarating, certainly, but exhilarating in the grubby, spiritually injurious way that you imagine a crack binge might be. It’s a full body assault of a movie which is calculated to stir up a frenzy of blood lust in even the meekest of audience members. And as such, it succeeds.”
18/05/2012
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The Financial Times
Nigel Andrews
“Directed by a Welshman and praised in Geekville, The Raid is fun of a kind: the kind liked by the brainless everywhere and by the intelligent in moments of elective brainlessness, such as a drunken Saturday night.”
17/05/2012
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The Independent
Anthony Quinn
“ The danger is overkill: one fight seemed to go on for about ten minutes, by which point you'd prefer one of them just to drop dead.”
18/05/2012
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The New York Times
Manohla Dargis
“While pencak silat may be unfamiliar to some Western viewers, the way that Mr. Evans visually exploits it in combination with the unimaginative rest — the mousetrap setup and tight fight spaces, the bad blood and cruel deaths — soon makes the movie grindingly monotonous, a blur of thudding body blows.”
22/03/2012
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