The Screen Addict | The Raid
When you watch a never-ending number of films and series like I do, you’re at risk of becoming blasé and indifferent. And although I will always believe that an objectively bad film does not exist, the really good ones do sometimes feel few and far between.
I often find myself revisiting films I’ve already seen a hundred times these days. Not because there is nothing else I want to watch, but because the familiar ones comfort me – like a visit from a long-lost old friend.
To accidentally stumble upon a new and truly phenomenal film is therefore one of the great pleasures in my life. One example of such an experience is when my friend Hester Aalberts invited me to a private screening of The Raid: Redemption (2011) many years ago.
I had just fallen deeply in love with Asia after visiting Indonesia to meet the family of my girlfriend at the time, and inviting her to see a film from her native country nobody in Holland had seen yet, seemed like a surefire way to impress her.
When TR:R turned out to be a completely original take on the idea of the Action genre to boot, I really felt like I couldn’t lose. The film was just a glorious, relentless, BONE-CRUNCHING thrill ride.
Director Gareth Evans – who is originally from Wales but made several films in Indonesia – completed TR:R on a shoestring budget, but that didn’t stop the film from influencing and inspiring countless bigger-budgeted blockbusters that came after it.
Pencak Silat master Iko Uwais – who featured in a documentary Evans made about martial arts back in 2007 – utterly exploded onto the international film scene after TR:R and its sequel. And when Uwais recently joined fellow bruisers Sylvester Stallone and Jason Statham in Expend4bles (2023), his Action-hero status was definitively cemented.
Evans kept a fairly low profile after The Raid 2 (2014) – although he is currently prepping a Tom Hardy film for Netflix – but the legacy of his sophomore feature is felt in almost every contemporary Action film.
Solid recommend.
#thescreenaddict
#film
#movies
#contentrecommendation
#celebrateart
#nobodyknowsanything
Twitter (X): Robin Logjes | The Screen Addict