8 | / 10 |
Users | 3.5 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
A police raid on a decrepit, vast Indonesian apartment building populated by the city's most dangerous and desperate citizens turns into a bloodbath. The elite SWAT team who have breached the building, including courageous and noble policeman Rama, are pursuing the building's owner, a powerful drug lord. Their assignment proves even more dangerous and deadly than expected.
Starring: Iko Uwais, Joe Taslim, Donny Alamsyah, Yayan Ruhian, Pierre GrunoThriller | 100% |
Action | 86% |
Crime | 82% |
Martial arts | 56% |
Foreign | 53% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Indonesian: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
Portuguese: Dolby Digital 5.1
Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1
Indonesian track with Original or New Music. Confirmed by Spanish speakers, Spanish track is Castilian Spanish, so Latin Spanish is not included as the back cover claims.
English, English SDH, Portuguese, Spanish
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
UV digital copy
Region A, B (locked)
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 3.0 | |
Audio | 3.5 | |
Extras | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
We have to get out of this place.
The Raid: Redemption is an orgy of violence wrapped around a loose and uninteresting story, relatively bland characters, and routine plot
developments. The movie succeeds on pure adrenaline, fight choreography, and guts alone. Audiences looking for anything other than butt-whooping
firearm, machete, knife, and martial arts style should seek out another film. Director Gareth Evans' (Merantau) picture ranks high up on the
list of ultimate guy movie adrenaline rushes; it's almost nonstop blood and violence, eschewing most other factors save for a few necessary breaks in
the action and a handful of compulsory character scenes in
order to bring viewers one of the most daring, relentless, and brutal movie experiences in some time. It's dark, dreary, inhospitable, and ofttimes
frightening. It's as close as the Action movie and Cop drama can get to the Horror picture without featuring masked maniacs and unnecessary gore.
That's a lot of building, inside of which there will be a lot of blood.
The low budget The Raid: Redemption arrives on Blu-ray with a lackluster transfer that's a result of a deliberately dark tone and low-grade photography. The HD video image is terribly flat and lifeless. Details are bland at best, whether almost nonexistent skin textures or a startling lack of complexity on rough surfaces around the building's interior and exterior locations. The image is at least consistent in its absence of crisp HD imagery, never capturing much more than the most cursory of details even in the brightest outdoor or indoor scenes. Colors are lifeless, too. The darker scenes offer next to nothing outside of shades of blue, gray, and black. Well-lit scenes manage a few splashes of stale color, such as blue containers as seen in a drug lab battle late in the movie. A pale red brick wall, washed out gray skies, and human skin account for most of the coloring outside. Black levels waver greatly, appearing pale and washed out here and overwhelming there while often slathered in noise. Heavy banding is scattered throughout. This is far from a pleasant watch, but the Blu-ray image appears to reproduce the original elements as well as it can, which is all one can really ask of a movie filmed in this manner.
The Raid: Redemption debuts on Blu-ray with the Sony-typical 5.1 channel lossless DTS track, presented both in English and Indonesian. As with the video presentation, this one's fairly "blah," but it does fare a tad better on the whole. There's not much presence inside the rattling SWAT van at the beginning; only a cursory amount of bumpiness and rattling play, though at least the sound emanates through the entire stage. Gunfire ranges from pop-gun intensity to nearly full-blown excellence. Sniper shots from a fairly enclosed space early on lack authority, but fire later in the film finds more potency. Music plays with fine spacing and good clarity, supported by an adequate low end. The surround channels carry a good bit of the load in terms of both music and sound effects, predominantly in the form of gunfire with a notable moment coming when distant strings of automatic weapons fire are heard emanating from all over the stage when the action is away from the gunfire but playing out simultaneously in another part of the building. It's a good all-around track, but a defining Action movie Blu-ray audio presentation this is not. Note that listeners may choose to view the movie with either the film's original music or music by Linkin Park's Mike Shinoda.
The Raid: Redemption contains a comprehensive collection of bonus content.
Anyone who wants to see relentless violence, amazing fight choreography, incessant bloodshed, and all sorts of chaotic gun, blade, and fist action, The Raid: Redemption is the movie to see. Anyone who doesn't get excited reading that last sentence should stay far away. The Raid: Redemption is no masterpiece, but it's an exemplary action-only movie that knows its place and gets every last bit of blood and sweat out of its premise. There's minimal story and characterization, just enough to give the movie some sense of purpose beyond spilling blood. Stylistically, this is a dark, drab, uncomfortable sort of movie, just the right tenor for a picture as brutal and exciting as this. Sony's Blu-ray release of The Raid: Redemption features bland video, fair audio, and a nice assortment of extras. Recommended for fans of violent cinema.
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