Blood, brothers

Serbuan maut (The Raid: Redemption)

Crit

Golly, I do believe that was the best Indonesian action flick I've ever seen. After a quiet domestic scene designed to make us care about a good cop about to become a father, the plot is established in about 15 seconds: ascend the fortified high-rise headquarters of a crime lord, and bring him in. I don't do video games, but what follows is what I understand such games to be like: the first few floors (levels) are easily negotiated, and then the everything hits the everything else.

The plot then takes various twists, but really, it's all about the fight choreography, and it is pretty amazing--there must be a thousand strokes by fist and foot, and I'm sure a close analysis would show that many are identical, but they certainly seem infinitely variable. There's also plenty of machete- and gunplay, but as one wicked henchman gestures, bare skin rules.