Russian Raid Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		0.5
Overall		2.0

Russian Raid Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman March 7, 2021

It might be salient to quote my colleague Martin Liebman, who reviewed a film with a not so coincidentally similar title to this one, stating that it was an orgy of violence wrapped around a loose and uninteresting story, relatively bland characters, and routine plot developments. That film was The Raid: Redemption, but Marty's description suffices surprisingly well for Russian Raid, which no doubt chose its Americanized title carefully and with deliberate forethought. Russian Raid is at its core a simple revenge thriller, though plotting is so absolutely miniscule that the entire enterprise simply ends up being one fighting vignette after another, without much coherent linking material. One of Russian Raid's supposed calling cards is that it features a glut of Russian mixed martial arts stars, including Ivan Kotik (whose work as a stunt man may be known to some viewers) as focal character Nikita. Kind of interestingly (if disappointingly) in that regard, the fight scenes are actually kind of haphazardly staged and performed. Sure, there are brutal smackdowns and lots of punching and kicking, but it's all kind of random and may fail to get the adrenaline pumping for most diehard action aficionados.

It might be tempting to state that Russian Raid begins in medias res, but that would imply that there's a story to begin with that the film is joining in the middle of. Joking aside, there are some gaping narrative gaps in the film, but the bottom line is we first are introduced to Nikita in his guise as some sort of military sniper. He's holed up on a bluff with a buddy of his, watching some kind of nefarious activity take place below that seems to involve an illegal transfer of weapons. When the head honcho of this villainous activity shows up, it turns out he's the monster who murdered Nikita's father years ago, which of course leads to Nikita blowing his cover and shooting at the guy. That ends up with all the bad guys returning fire, which results in the death of Nikita's BFF. And so within minutes we already have the hoary trope of an emotionally wounded hero out to avenge the deaths of not one, but two, of his closest comrades.

Russian Raid then takes a slight detour that may remind some of The Dirty Dozen, in that Nikita, now a freelance mercenary, is put in charge of a ragtag group of recruits who are tasked with invading a warehouse which turns out to be run by the very guy Nikita wants to exact revenge from. Predictable much? The upshot is that Nikita and his crew do invade the warehouse, though they're surprised by the fact that their nemeses are not unarmed, as they've been told they'll be, so soon enough it's not just hand to hand combat that plays out. It's all relentlessly ridiculous, with nary a hint of any emotional tether to any of the characters.

For a film that features what are ostensibly some of the best fighters in Russia, Russian Raid is almost spectacularly ill conceived when it comes to its action scenes. Framings attempt to cover the fact that the fighters are not actually really engaging each other, but it's more than obvious how contrived everything is. There's admittedly a lot of sound and fury to this outing, but as some wise poet once stated, it signifies nothing. After a while, even the relentless onslaught of supposed skirmishes becomes a yawn, and the film just kind of trundles on through set piece after set piece.

It is at least relatively interesting to see a Russian production like this which is obviously aping "Western" film genres, which may suggest that Capitalism did indeed triumph over the Russian soul in some way or the other, but the irony is that things are so listless and formulaic, as if to suggest that some wise guy named Karl Marx or something may have been warning folks for a reason (this is all said in jest as well, in case it's not clear). That said, there are stabs at what I'm assuming is nationalistic fervor in frankly weird plot elements like Nikita training with a log and flashbacks to his childhood memories of whatever the Russian version of Riverdance is. Russian Raid, like some of the ostensible fighting it features, never really connects.

Russian Raid Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Russian Raid is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Well Go USA with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. Once again for a film of relatively recent vintage, I haven't been able to dredge up any authoritative technical data on the shoot. There's some appealing style here at times, though director Denis Kryuchkov (who also co-wrote) and cinematographer Alexey Sedov opt for some arguably cliché ridden presentational choices like having desaturated or golden hued flashbacks. There are some kind of cool looking grading choices on display at times, including some of the slightly cool, blue tinged sequences early in the film showing Nikita in training, or even the almost John Wick-esque purples and blues that become prevalent in the warehouse environment. The darker blues and purples in particular can materially affect detail levels at times, but on the whole fine detail remains strong throughout the presentation.

Russian Raid Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Russian Raid features a boisterous DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track in the original Russian that features a wealth of surround activity in the many (many) fight sequences. In fact, while the track is almost relentlessly noisy and powerful, that may ultimate lead to an almost "numbing" aspect after a while, where it all just seems like everything is "turned up to 11". That said, there's some fun sound design on display that makes the most of everything from gunfire to explosions to hand to hand combat. Dialogue is rendered cleanly throughout and is mostly well prioritized. Optional English subtitles are available.

Russian Raid Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Trailer (1080p; 1:39)

Note: As tends to be the case with Well Go USA Blu-ray releases, the disc has been authored to automatically move on to trailers for other Well Go USA releases after the trailer for this film plays. Those trailers for other Well Go USA releases also play automatically at disc boot up.

Russian Raid Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Russian Raid is an over obvious if frankly unapologetic knock off that wants to cash in on the nascent Raid franchise, but it doesn't have anything new or surprising to say. Perhaps even more perplexingly, the fight scenes here seem weirdly awkward and at least on occasion downright fake looking. Some of the visual allusions to what I'm going to have to assume are real Russian traditions give this effort some passing moments of interest, but they're fleeting at best. On the plus side, there's a bit of visual style here, and the sound design is often overpowering, for those who like to feel their floorboards rumbling regularly, so technical merits are secure for those who are considering a purchase.