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Showing posts with label The Raid. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Raid. Show all posts
12 March 2017
A Kung Fu James Bond Movie
15 October 2012
Raiders With A Martial Art
If watching violent films and playing
violent games could turn us into violent people then there's no doubt I'd have
killed someone by now. I already have a predisposition towards misanthropy and
so it really wouldn't take that much to push me over the edge. A few years back
I endured a particularly brutal breakup with someone in which they wouldn't
take the hint and piss the fuck off. After three hours of trying to convince
her to get out of my house I found myself defeated and exhausted. I sat on the
floor with my brain all argued out and tried in silence to think of something I
could say that would end this siege of emotional retardation.
Although she did eventually leave it wasn't
before I'd been turned into a lobotomised wreck. Dribbling, disorientated and
overwhelmed I was like a drunk Paris Hilton in a cum factory. I therefore did
the only thing that I could to regain my sanity and so switched on the Xbox.
Say what you like about Call of Duty: Black Ops but it's combat training
was a godsend. I set the bots to easy, found the smallest possible level and
then spent the next two hours repeatedly shooting the poor little bastards
pointblank in the face with a shotgun. It'd been a difficult night for me so
I'm glad nobody was around to witness my
maniacal laughter or raging boner.
My point is that rather than turning me
into a genuine psycho this virtual slaughter actually mellowed me out and
helped to relieve a fuck load of stress. Despite the bad press they get,
violent films work just the same for me by acting as an effective celluloid stress-ball.
If I accidentally catch just a glimpse of Piers Morgan's mutated ball-sack of a
face then I have to watch Natural Born Killers for six solid hours to
try and calm down... It's either that or I have to kill a budgie.
The most violent film I've seen both
recently and for the first time is the Indonesian action film The Raid. I'd
heard good things about it beforehand, but then I'd also heard good things
about anal sex and I can't say I enjoyed that particularly. The difference I
suppose was that I watched The Raid of my own free will whereas it
wasn't until mid-fuck I realised that I'd been duped into performing buggery.
Call me old fashioned but my general outlook is that a vagina is usually snug enough unless, of course,
your cock is quite small, or your girlfriend’s a slut.
The Raid starts
quietly with the main character Rama preparing for his next assignment. He's a
member of an Elite SWAT team, an excellent fighter and his wife is currently
expecting their first child. I guess Rama figures that as soon as his partner
gives birth, his life is basically over anyway and so why not go for a job in
which you're likely to die in a hail of bullets? The opening scene is the
closest we get to any real backstory and even that features Rama slapping a
punching bag as though he's just caught AIDs off the village tart.
If there's one thing that can be said about
The Raid, it’s that it's not complicated. In fact, the plot is probably
about as simple and single-minded as Ashton Kutcher in a coma dreaming about
eggcups. I mean that as a complement too by the way, as so many action films
are ruined by a convoluted story. For example, The Merovingian adds nothing to The
Matrix Reloaded except running time and annoying, pseudo-philosophical
drivel. If there's any one nation that I refuse to be lectured by about 'Cause
and Effect' then it's the fucking French (worse still by someone pretending to be French). The Raid on
the other hand is so lean that if it were an actor, it could easily play a
holocaust victim or perhaps a smack addict.
Rama gets called up for his assignment and
quickly finds himself in the back of a van with the rest of his team. Their
mission is to invade a scummy block of flats and then arrest the gang leader
who lives there. Unfortunately for them, the majority of people who inhabit it
are also criminals using the security of the building to lie low. I hate to
draw comparisons to this tower and the unemployed yobs who live there, to a
block of flats in the poorer parts of Liverpool, so I won't. Not because I
don't believe it but because Scousers can be fucking touchy when they want to
be.
Despite this being a crack team of well-trained
law enforcers, they manage to fuck things up within seconds of entering the
building. They're spotted by a young child who manages to sound the alarm and
warn everyone inside that they're on the prowl. I hate to criticise the
Indonesian Police but what the fuck was their delay. They had a clear two
seconds to shoot that lookout kid in the fucking head and yet they hesitated. I
know he hadn't done anything to warrant his death when they had the opportunity,
but since when would that stop our police? Until I live in a fascist society
were innocent people can be shot to death by the law and with no real
consequences, then I just won't be able to feel safe.
The building is instantly put into lockdown
with the residents ordered to kill Rama and his colleagues in exchange for some
free rent. What follows is ninety minutes of hardcore action and survival
horror that makes your average snuff movie look like the latest Pixar film. To
describe the violence in The Raid as extreme would be an understatement.
It features people getting shot in the face, stabbed in the throat and the most
horrific gaping axe wound since Pamela Anderson hit that red record button,
spread her legs and showed us what she had for breakfast.
If the plot of this film sounds in any way
familiar then I'd assume that's because you're one of the twelve people to have
seen the recent and excellent Dredd. Comparisons between the two films
have been widely made with their similarity in fact being used as criticism
against Dredd. However having now seen both films, I really don't see
what the problem is. Sure they share the same set up but that's about it. It's
kind of like the start of Casino Royale when Bond is chasing the black
guy who’s bouncing around a construction site like an evil Tigger with a bomb.
They come to a dead end in which the black guy leaps athletically through a
small window only for Bond to plough straight through it like a proper defiant
bastard. With this analogy, The Raid is Tigger the bomber and Dredd
is Bond. They both face the same hurdles but where one solves it with a
dignified display of lethal ballet, the other just smashes things up like an
angry cunt with a wasp up his arse.
I don't want to have to choose between Dredd
and The Raid because I loved them both. However after watching the
latter I kind of realised I never need to see another action film ever again.
Everything about The Raid is pretty much perfect with the stunts being
exciting, imaginative and relentlessly bone-crunching. Most films break up
their action with scenes of exposition or ‘backstory’ but The Raid can't
be fucked with something as pathetic as dialogue. It therefore breaks up its
action with different forms of violence. They start off shooting at each other,
then move onto knife fights and then conclude with some phenomenal kung-fu
shiz. I'm not exaggerating when I say the martial arts here really does makes
the incredible fighting in The Matrix look like two thalidomide's trying
to happy-slap each other in a desperate attempt to somehow climax.
I'm in no way a sporty person but the level
of dedication on display with The Raid’s
stunts is genuinely shocking. At times the fighting gets so extreme you can't
help but wonder if anybody genuinely got hurt. I'm not saying that action films
are improved by the possibility of real danger but it would certainly make some
movies more entertaining. In fact if someone actually kicked Chris Tucker in
the throat then Rush Hour would be at risk of becoming almost watchable.
Bizarrely, and despite The Raid being
an Indonesian kung-fu film, it is in fact written and directed by some Welsh
bloke called Gareth Evans. Before seeing this movie, I'd always thought of the
Welsh as an English secret and considered them our sort-of-simple cousins. They
were basically only known for living in the hills and riding sheep in a way
that can only be safe with the use of a condom. Having now seen The Raid, my
opinion hasn't changed but Gareth Evans is clearly a talented man. For the full
running time, his camera never stops moving, whizzing about like an bonus character
on crack. The ‘kineticism’ really is up their with Sam Raimi and Edgar Wright
and really does go to show that it's not the budget that dictates excitement,
but the level of talent in control. If Michael Bay was even half as talented as
Evans then he'd realise how shite Transformers: Dark of the Moon was and
cry himself to death in a puddle of piss and shame. If we, as a species,
realised how much more money was involved with that ball-poppingly dull
threequel was, we'd hopefully do the same.
If I have one criticism of The Raid, it
would be regarding a minor plot development in which two characters turn out to
be brothers. Despite this adding a little extra tension and character
development it also comes across as a little bit of a coincidence. Although in its
defence, that is only a minor point and is in no way as contrived as Star
Wars: The Phantom Menace. I'd always wondered who built C3-PO and so thank
God it turned out to be a young Darth Vader. Without that random and
unnecessary development, the saga wouldn't have held together as well and Episode
one would probably be considered to be proper shite.
In the end, The Raid probably won't
be everybody’s cup of tea, but that's only because some people are pussies. Yes,
it's violent, but it's really not as offensive as something like the morally
bankrupt Sex and the City 2. After watching The Raid all I wanted
to do was tell people how brilliant it was. After Sex and the Shitty I
just wanted to self-harm for a few hours until the memories went away. I guess
what I'm saying is that violent films really don't make the people watching
them violent. After enduring the self-indulgent escapades of Miranda,
Charlotte, Samantha and Seabiscuit, they might even help to calm us down. Sure
laughing at the sight of seeing someone knifed in the throat might seem
anti-social but fuck it- I can assure you it was through the sheer giddy of The
Raids brilliance and not because I think being stabbed is a source of humour.
Not unless Piers Morgan's after any tips for a stand up routine, anyway.
Follow this blog or I'll fucking cut you.
23 September 2012
Time for Judgement
I saw a crime
happening once...
It was about 2:00
in the morning, I was sitting at the computer and rain was beating
heavily against the window. I was probably searching for porn when in
the corner of my eye I noticed a flash of light. Initially I assumed
it was lighting but there was suspiciously no sound of thunder. I was
about to ignore it when there was a second flash, and then a third. I
looked out of the window to investigate and was stunned with what I
saw.
Walking down the
road was a young couple who had been caught in the rain. Because of
how wet it was, the girl had done what any classy dame would and
stripped completely off. There was another flash of light and I
realised it was, assumedly, her boyfriend- he was walking ahead and
taking pictures. Only a few seconds later, they'd turned the corner
and were gone. I don't know what happened to them after that, but I'd
have loved to have seen the photos the next day. Excited to see proof
of their mischief, they'd have opened the photographs and then
noticed it- in the background of every single shot would be my face
pressed up against the window, breathing and drooling. I'm aware that
wandering the streets with your clam-flaps out is illegal, but
frankly it's a law that I feel needs revising.
One
man who wouldn't have been seduced by this naked marathon of
criminality is Judge Joseph Dredd. Dredd 3D is
the latest film to be released about the fascist rozzer of the future
and the first in which he's depicted by a fully evolved human. He
received his original cinematic outing in 1995 when he was famously
portrayed by the dopey-faced humanzee, Sylvester Stallone.
Unfortunately the film was notoriously crap and further proof that
Mongy Kong should stick to making his Rocky movies.
They're crap too but at least he can successfully take a punch to the
head without a risk of any long term damage.
Dredd is
of course a reboot for the character who is now being played by Karl
Urban. Not that you can tell of course as the character rightly
spends the entire film with his face hidden from view. Considering
how iconic his helmet is, to not have Judge Dredd wear it is a bit
like having Indiana Jones without his whip or Lisbeth Salander
without her anti-rape dildo. Of course this was therefore one of the
many errors of 95's Judge Dredd
in which Stallone spent the whole movie offending viewers with the
sight of his Deliverence-esque face.
In contrast however, Urban luckily proves himself to be very good at
mouth acting by gurning himself up the cool list like a pissed off
Popeye on bathsalts. His trick in projecting pure menace and cool
seems to be simply fixing his lips to a grimace that suggests he's
about to shit out a
watermelon but then clenching tight, until his balls hurt. I actually
did something very similar the other week by trying to force out a
crap that I didn't really need. In the end I pushed so hard that my
face turned bright red and I accidentally puked in my mouth.
Anyway,
so the film starts with a brief history of Mega-City One. It has a
population of 800 million people and a crime problem almost as
serious as modern day Manchester. As a result, certain law enforcers
have been granted the privilege of Judge Judy and Executioner. Dredd
is one of those trigger happy authoritarians and one who has just
been given the task of observing a new recruit called Judge Anderson
played by Juno's Olivia
Thirlby. Anderson is a young female mutant who, like all women,
thinks she can read your mind and attempts to prove it by deducing
that a criminal is picturing her naked. Although being honest, it
probably doesn't take magic powers to know that anybody in Olivia
Thirlby's company is thinking about shagging her.
Unlike
famous British bullshitter Sally Morgan however, Anderson is an
actual psychic and not just a manipulative cunt who takes advantage
of vulnerable members of the public. So far my favourite Sally Morgan
video is where she holds up a photograph of an old person and asks a
member of the audience if the pensioners name was Bernard. The
audience member then corrects Sally the Charlatan
by informing her that
it's actually their Nan. I'd hate to imply that all “psychics”
are evil fakes like Sally Morgan is because that's obviously not
true. At least a couple of them are probably mental too.
So
Dredd and Anderson are called to a tower block to investigate the
death of several junkies. It seems that this area has been flooded
with a new substance known as Slo-Mo which has to be the most boring
drug ever invented. I've never taken ecstasy but I hear it hippies
you up with temporary joy and happiness, making music and people more
tolerable. Slo-Mo however simply makes the brain perceive things at
one percent its normal rate, which is a bit like watching Sex
and the City 2 whilst trying not
to fall asleep after a horribly failed attempt at masturbation.
Despite the violence of Dredd,
I ironically found that
2010 tart-a-thon to be a lot more morally offensive with its ignorant
undertones of sexism and racism. Also, Sarah Jessica Parker spent far
too long trotting around without a jockey for me to take it
seriously. Every time her character referred to her writings, I
wasn't sure if she was after a Pulitzer or a sugar cube. I'm
currently in the middle of writing a fanscript for Sex and
the City 3 which
consists simply of a five minute
visit to the glue factory followed by a round of applause. The
encouraging thing is that I'm yet to type anything up and already my
blank script is more insightful than the crayon-and-shit-smeared
screenplay of the first two movies combined.
Anyway
unfortunately for Dredd and Anderson, the tower block in which they
are investigating is run by a powerful gang leader known as Ma-Ma.
Once she gets wind of their presence, she has the building locked
down and orders her people to kill the two Judges. The rest of the
film from this point on simply consists of Dredd and the rookie
trying not to die as waves of tooled up residents head straight for
them. It's kind of like walking into a busy high-street, finding a
random stranger and then shouting, “there's the paedophile”.
Within minutes the unfortunate cunt will be running for his life as
each member of the public unquestionably chases after him with bricks
and knives
There
appears to be one big problem with the plot of Dredd
and that is that it's apparently near identical to that of The
Raid. Not only that, but from
what I hear, The Raid may
well be one of the best action movies of recent years. Of course
nobody is accusing either film of copying the other with it obviously
being just one of those things.
Dredd's cameras may
have been rolling almost five months earlier but The Raid
was released
first. Luckily for me though I'm yet to see that superior film and so
was able enjoy the genius of Dredd
free from the curse of comparison. Not only that but I've got another
even better film apparently still to watch. It's kind of like fucking
someone in the folds of their fat and then finding out afterwards
that there's still a vagina to explore. I definitely had fun the
first time and so can't wait for the the superior experience.
Dredd
has several other things making it brilliant, with the most obvious
being the character himself. Judge Dredd may well be a monosyllabic,
unlikeable cunt but he's also fucking cool. Steven Seagal has been
larding his way through action movies for years and he's never said
anything even half as cool as any one of Dredd's three lines.
“Ma-Ma's not the Law- I'm the Law”, may sound like something from
an inevitably explosive remake of Psycho
by Michael Bay, but
here it becomes Dredds equivalent of, “Make my day, punk”. In the
world of red tape and bureaucracy that we live in, it's nice to see a
man of action. I think when Dredd shoots a flare into a criminals
mouth causing his face to melt off, we get the impression that that's
exactly what he is. Dredd isn't quite the kind of guy who shoots
first and asks questions later. He's more the kind of guy who shoots
first and then forgets about the questions altogether.
In
recent years, action films have had their balls well and truly
chopped off. Whereas once we were inundated with the adult orientated
gunplay of Die Hard and
Point Break, we are
now smothered in a world of the suffocating bland.
Our cinemas are full of films like Resident Evil:
Retribution which clog
themselves up like a stubborn turd that refuses to flush. What Dredd
does to counter this is to
include a little bit of politics and
the goriest movie violence this side of an Al-Qaeda snuff movie. I
can't stand real violence in the slightest but a film in which we see
someone's cheek slowly rip open as a bullet passes through it is a
real treat. In any case, it certainly provided an effective antidote
to the decaying pain of brain-syphilis that is still infecting me
from my viewing of Transformers: Dark of the Moon.
As for the
politics- well, Dredd is of course an undeniable fascist. However, in
the locked down tower, his lethal actions seem fairly justified with
his violence being as a result of his need to survive. In future
instalments I'd perhaps quite like to see him simply executing people
as a result of his own judgement. Beyond the joyously head
splattering violence that this would provide, it would also be an
interesting exploration into the morality of his life whilst at work
on the streets. Personally I'm against capital punishment, with my
main objection being in regards to its ethical hypocrisy. I honestly
don't know how a simple serial killer can be put on death row for
their atrocious crimes whereas someone as evil as Piers Morgan gets
his own chat-show. I know that a nutter with a knife may seem like
more of a threat to society but in actual fact, Morgan's smug levels
are so high that they're almost radioactive. I don't know if it's
true, but I heard that licking his face is actually more fatal than
sticking a poisonous frog up your arse and then trying to fart it
out. Either way, it's the latter that certainly sounds a hell of a
lot more fun.
Director
Pete Travis and writer Alex Garland have done a great job of finally
getting the real Judge Dredd to the big screen. Travis' back
catalogue might not exactly be the most impressive, however I've been
a huge fan of Garland's since he wiped out the population of London
in 28 Days Later. Despite
Dredd simply being
Dirty Harry meets Die
Hard-in-the-future, his script
does its best to stay as grounded as possible, avoiding the trap of
most action movie cliches.
If I
have any criticism, it's during a scene in which Dredd is about to be
killed. Rather than just shoot him, his attacker instead begins to
gloat. Not just for a second either, he begins to waffle on and on
like an attention starved retard for a couple of minutes. Although
the entire film
is brilliant, this one scene does accidentally turn into that
Simpsons
episode in which Bart delays Sideshow Bob by asking him to perform
the H.M.S.
Pinafore
in its entirety. After Dredd obviously escapes this situation he
tends to a stomach wound by simply stapling it up. I'm not a doctor
but I'm pretty sure Dredd's
staples
wouldn't
prevent any internal bleeding. I'm therefore going to assume that the
moment the closing credits began, his adrenalin would have stopped
pumping and he'd have collapsed unconscious to the ground. I once
shaved my face so fast that it started bleeding to the point that I
thought I should call for an ambulance so there's no fucking way he'd
just 'be fine'.
A
final compliment to the movie would be the price that I had to pay
for it. When arriving at the cinema, I hadn't realised it was
exclusively showing in 3D and so became suitably pissed off.
Personally I hate this shitty gimmick that's being forced upon us and
so can't wait for it to just fuck right off. I
was also forced to watch Avengers
Assemble this
way which was a pain in the arse because of the way it reduces the
light. That film apparently begins with Nick Fury surviving a night
time assault but all I could see was his one fucking eye bouncing
around the screen. When I arrived to see Dredd
and
was charged extra for both the ticket and glasses, I felt well and
truly raped. Being forced to pay extra for something I didn't want in
the first place must be like being forcefully arse-fucked up an alley
and then told to thank your attacker for his effort. When the film
started I was obviously still feeling dirty, annoyed and abused. The
3D adds nothing to Dredd
whatsoever
but within seconds I'd forgotten all about it. From the moment
Urban's voice growls over the film's introduction, I was lost in the
world of Mega City One. Dredd
is
a film with a cool, fuck-you attitude, as blunt and to the point as
being kicked in the face. It has similar drug effects to Limitless,
the
action gore of Wanted
and
the gritty visuals of District
9. I
can only assume that if The
Raid is
better then it must simply be two solid hours of watching someone
machine gun Piers Morgan's lifeless corpse back to Hell. If I was to
summarise this overly-long blog of waffle, it would probably be these
five words, “Stallone should be fucking ashamed”. Now, I
apologise for taking up so much of your internet-time. Please get
back to enjoying some porn and hopefully see you back here soon.
Follow this blog or I'll fucking cut you.
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