“20 Elite Cops. 30 Floors of Hell.”
So proclaims The Raid’s marketing. Except most of those 20 cops are explicitly stated to be rookies, and the big bad baddie is on the 15th floor. This is indicative of the whole problem with The Raid a couple of years on from its release: it’s become a victim of its own hype.
The plot, such as it is, is well summarised in that tagline. A group of heavily-armed coppers stage a dawn raid on the high-rise HQ of a crime boss. A no-go locale for the past decade, this mission is a Brave and Daring thing. It all goes smoothly at first… until a lookout spots them, warns the (literal) higher-ups, and all hell rains down. Never mind completing their mission, will any of them get out alive? Cue lots of shooting, stabbing, punching, kicking, jumping… and not much else.
In this regard, perhaps the other film that The Raid is most like is Mamma Mia: a perfunctory plot that exists purely to link together the bits we’re really here for — Abba songs. Or “fights”, in The Raid’s case… though, let’s be honest, how much more original and interesting would it be if they were fighting to Abba songs? A lack of story isn’t necessarily a problem, however: much as some people basically wanted an excuse to sing along to a bunch of catchy pop tunes, some people just want to watch well-choreographed punch-ups. The only issue I have with the slight storyline is that the climax leans on it: 
instead of ending with our hero duelling our villain, a fight with the top henchman is followed by a bit of plot clean-up between the villain and a supporting character. It’s the very definition of anti-climactic.
That aside, the film coasts along on its lengthy action sequences. They’re pretty good on the whole, if a little numbingly repetitive by the end. The style is largely of the punching-and-kicking variety — no parkour-esque leaping about here — but the speed is impressive, even if that means you sometimes can’t quite keep up. Still, at least you can see the people fighting — the direction and editing by Welshman (a whole other story, that) Gareth Evans isn’t based in the Hollywood school of extreme close-ups and super-fast cuts.
A lot has been made (by some) of that US comparison. It’s true that the fighting is leaps and bounds ahead of your standard American actioner, replete with done-for-real stunts, long takes of fast-paced choreography, and no ShakyCam close-ups or single-frame editing designed to create the illusion of someone who can fight for real — these guys can fight for real. But it’s ultimately an unfair comparison, because Asian movies do action differently to Western movies. Put The Raid with its true brethren and, while it doesn’t come up short, it’s not quite as impressive. Leading man Iko Uwais and his fellow duellers are undoubtedly very skilled, but there were no “wow!” moments like I’ve had from the best of Jackie Chan, Donnie Yen, Jet Li, Tony Jaa, or others. The sequences offered here mean The Raid can sit comfortably in their company, but does it outclass them in a way that merits it being a break-out hit? No.
Another way it’s pleasingly unlike its current American counterparts is the lack of focus on gore. There are plenty of stabbings (of a blood-stain-on-shirt variety), and a couple of sliced necks, but none are lingered on. Things like a hammer beating or repeated machete strikes take place either just off screen or just after we cut away. It’s unquestionably a violent film, but it doesn’t revel in the gory aftermath of that violence in the way many US films increasingly seem to.
While we may not have to endure ShakyCam in the fights, an awful lot of it is still shot handheld — the sea-sickness-inducing close-ups we’re so familiar with from a decade-and-a-half of 24-inspired quick-to-shoot photography are certainly present. Indeed, all of the cinematography is ugly. Maybe someone massively over-compressed it for the BD, but I suspect it may be due to low-budget digitally-shot roots. The image is distractingly laced with banding, weird bursts of colour… And even ignoring such technical issues, the palate is unrelentingly brown. Whole frames are just slightly varied shades of dark murky brown, perhaps with a splash of grey, and maybe some blue streaks where one technical element or another has gone awry.
You’re likely aware of the fuss that was kicked up when the trailer for sci-fi comic book actioner Dredd was released a couple of years ago, and a lot of people said it looked like a Raid rip-off. Such comparisons are largely superficial: the similarities are more pronounced in trailers than in how the full films feel. Comparing the finished results, however, I found Dredd to be more entertaining. It can’t boast the realism of The Raid, both in the level of bloody gore and in the way the action was achieved, with highly trained professionals and thorough choreography; but the 2000 AD adaptation still features effective, exciting action sequences delivered on its own terms, and alongside those offers greater doses of story, character and humour, 
to make for a much more rounded experience. The fights in The Raid may have blown the minds of people who haven’t seen enough Asian action flicks, but I’d argue Dredd is the better film as a whole. And if you still insist on accusing one of plagiarising the other… well, let’s put it this way: Dredd had finished shooting, and its screenplay had leaked online, before The Raid even entered production.
Sadly, by this point, The Raid doesn’t really live up to the hype — probably because it’s been laid on so thick. The fights are impressive, but not the most incredible ever, unless your action diet is purely American. Plus, those looking for a solid story with the odd punch-up need not apply: what plot there is — and it’s a thin one — exists to service some action, which will drag on and on (and on) if that’s not your thing. For genre aficionados, however, it does still merit your time.
The UK TV premiere of The Raid is tonight at 10:55pm on Film4.
* The international release was cut by 10 seconds for violence, thanks to two short MPAA-mandated excisions to gain an R certificate. The uncut, US-unrated version is available on Blu-ray, and is the one I watched. ^
Ever since I read 
naturalistic to the point of being almost documentarian, with half-caught snatches of dialogue and sequences that seem trimmed to (almost) the relevant moments from much longer filming — still begs that you pay attention, but it seems this cut gives you more of a hand: it gets to the killing quicker (“63 vs 82 minutes”), a meeting with gangsters is “longer, more coherent and explicit”, and so on.
The Killing of a Chinese Bookie is not a neat little thriller in any respect. As Tom Charity puts it (in the BFI booklet again), “if the scenario sounds generic, the film is something else”. It reminded me of Martin Scorsese’s 
Krister Henriksson returns as the Swedish detective for a third and final series of mysteries, starting with this final theatrically-released episode, based on the final Wallander novel. Yes, there is a sense of finality here — albeit one not reached just yet.
It’s here that Henriksson gets to show off his acting chops the most. At a dinner party with his family, Wallander largely sits quietly with a drink rather than interact with others, occasionally staring aimlessly into the distance, or only remotely engaging with what the others are doing. He witters about a painting of a goat. Later, he has a disproportionately angry response when his friend brings news that he’s been suspended. He dotes on his granddaughter, but one day loses her and her buggy when he pops into a shop — but finds her quickly enough that no one will be any the wiser. Little signs like this are scattered around, clueing us in to where Wallander will presumably end up: retired from the force, and possibly retired from his life. Whether Mankell brought the issues to a head in his novel or not, I don’t know, but here I can only imagine it will build throughout the series.
The one thing that really cuts through Kurt’s newfound confusedness is when he gets a nose for a case. Quietly, by himself, he sets about digging in to what’s going on, unearthing evidence that’s been missed by others, piecing it together to complete a picture of long-kept secrets and new crimes committed in the name of keeping them. It resolves into a complex conspiracy, one that touches the lives of altogether innocent people. Is there justice at the end of it? Of a sort, but how satisfying that justice is… well…
Part of Leone’s intended trilogy about the history of violence in the USA, Once Upon a Time in America is the life story of four friends and gangsters in Noo Yoik during a large chunk of the 20th Century. So it’s a gangster film focusing on violence, then? Well, no… not at all, really. Indeed, saying Once Upon a Time in America is a film about gangsters is a bit like saying 
Leaving aside the less savoury aspects (as, it seems, 
Once Upon a Time in America falls somewhere between these two stools. It’s a film that is, I think, easy to instantly admire — if not wholly, then for its majority; but also one I found difficult to process a full personal reaction to. With the recently-extended version set to arrive on DVD/Blu-ray/download later this year (in the US, at any rate), an ultra-convenient chance for a second evaluation looms.
Adapted from a Marvel comic, though you can’t really call this a superhero movie: undercover cop Frank Castle’s family are murdered, so he goes after the crime organisation responsible. This is action-thriller territory, not guys in tights fighting.
The man who would go on to helm 
In reading up on the film, a few pieces analyse the ending as Max going to the dark side — becoming as bad as those he was fighting against; or, at the very least, becoming an anti-hero. I didn’t see it that way at first, which I think is the difference between 1979 and what’s happened in movies since. Now we routinely have heroes who do bad things: look at Jack Bauer’s love of torture in 
The final Falcon film to star Tom Conway (three more were made a few years later, but there seems to be debate about whether that was the same character) sees our avian-monikered detective planning to take a fishing holiday… until he can’t resist saving a damsel in distress and gets dragged in to a plot involving kidnap, theft, and murder. I think I saw someone jaywalking too, so it’s a veritable hotbed of criminality.
The Falcon’s Adventure is a terribly generic title for a film that isn’t the series’ very best, but is a solid upper-end instalment. They’re mostly quite formulaic films, naturally, but Adventure gets the mix right with some good sequences and gags. As the last film it doesn’t represent much of a conclusion, but then they didn’t really go in for big “series finales” back then, did they. 
Once again smitten by a pretty lady, the Falcon finds himself co-opted into guarding a wealthy woman’s jewellery. But when said jewels are promptly stolen, and murders ensue, our charming hero is implicated. Who would do such a dastardly thing? And what’s going on with the DJ in the roof of the hotel?
Among the rest of the cast, Vince Barnett becomes the fourth actor to play the Falcon’s sidekick, Goldie; and Jean Brooks and Rita Corday each appear in their fifth Falcon films! Brooks was previously in 
The Falcon is often dragged into adventures by beautiful women he can’t resist, but here it’s a female of a different kind — a little girl. After her nanny is murdered on the train to San Francisco, the Falcon offers to take her safely home… only to get arrested for his troubles, and then be picked up by a mysterious woman and her heavies and given a good beating. What the blazes?!
At least there’s some comic relief thanks to the return of the Falcon’s sidekick Goldie, who’s been absent since 
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