I Watch Films: The Raid

The Raid

In Jakarta a 15-storey block of flats has been taken over by a criminal gang. They use it as both a drugs lab, distribution centre and also a place for other criminals to stay.

A police lieutenant has got a squad of SWAT cops to raid the building. But this operation is off the books. There’s no back up. And the building has cameras and speakers. So when they’re spotted on the seventh floor it becomes an ambush.

The gang lord has two lieutenants, the smart one and the violent one. The SWAT team has a couple of leaders and the Main Character. There’s a lot of fights, using the variously confined spaces, long and short, some good set-piece stunts. There’s some plot twists, because there is an actual plot that the suspense and action scenes are threaded on, and though not exactly novel, they do move things along in an interesting fashion.

Watch This: An action film with modern style and old-school sensibilities
Don’t Watch This: It’s just a lot of people fighting in corridors