While I have never been a big fan of martial arts movies — especially after having watched a slew of them in the early 1980s — I have to admit that Gareth Evans’ Indonesian apartment slaughterhouse The Raid: Redemption is quite the showstopper. It’s a contained thriller, like Die Hard, that makes exceptional use of one location and yet takes the time to develop its main characters with surprising depth.  Action fans around the world are applauding this film, and with good reason.

However, it is unrelentingly violent.  How The Raid: Redemption received an R rating from the MPAA is beyond my imagination.  An NC-17 rating for violence might still be too lenient.  When a police SWAT team invades an apartment building trying to capture the drug lord that runs it like a fortress, the bad guy calmly announces their presence through a loudspeaker and exhorts the tenants to attack the cops as if they were cockroaches.  The body count begins with half of the SWAT team and gradually mounts into the dozens, if not scores, of bloodied good guys and bad guys.  I’ve seen some violent mainstream movies in my time, but this ranks as one of the bloodiest.

All the carnage isn’t without cause.  One particular cop, a rookie (Iko Uwais) has a secondary mission in the building; he has learned that his wayward brother is inside, and he wants to bring him home.  The lieutenant (Pierre Gruno) who organizes the raid has his own agenda, and the cop in charge (Joe Taslim) simply wants to get everyone back out safely once things fall apart.  A couple of other characters have major impacts on the story, which all takes place in the span of just a few hours.

Even without all the martial arts action, which is also exceptional, creating a thriller this intense, claustrophobic and imaginative would be an accomplishment.  Because of all the killing and maiming, it really becomes overpowering, forcing the viewer to experience palpable fear and distress with its beleaguered protagonists.  Evans’ film may or may not be atypical for the genre but it is sure to be imitated because it is so effective.  A sequel, Berandal, is planned for next year, and an American remake is rumored to be put into production for 2014.  This isn’t surprising, given the raves it is getting from action fans, although the film has not been marketed well by Sony so its American grosses have been disappointing.  The bottom line for me is that although I am not a big martial arts fan and I was put off by so much human slaughter, I also recognize quality when I see it, and The Raid: Redemption is a spectacular, harrowing action movie of the first order.  ✰ ✰ ✰ ½.  19 April 2012.