The Raid (2011) / Dredd (2012)

[Darth Turbogeek]

If you have not seen either of these two movies, you have missed out on the two best action films of the year.

Big call? Allow me to convince you!

The Raid is an independant Indonesian film set in the slums of Jakarta where a corrupt police force with a few good honest cops attempt to raid a building in the possession of a notorious Mr Big and his violent henchmen.

Dredd is an independant US film set in the dysopian slums of Mega City 1, where the Judges are now the new police force and two of them attempt to bring down a notorious Mrs Big and her violent henchmen

The Raid at it's heart is a hyper violent martial arts film

Dredd at it's heart is a hyper violent action film.

Both share themes, stories of corruption, a drug boss holed up in the top of a building and the entire block turned out against the police or Judges.

Both movies have the good guys having to shoot or fight their way to the top of the building because escape is impossible.

Both have a kick ass bass thumping sound track

Both are also vastly better than what you would have expected - The Raid is grim, well produced and has some of the best martial arts seen this century. Dredd is grim, well produced with simply amazing visuals and some of the best violence and gore in the name of action seen this century. Plus, Dredd is NOTHING like the Stallone "Judge Dredd" - this Dredd follows the 2000AD comics in tone, sarcasm and slyly taking the piss out of authoritarian systems.

Both also were VASTLY underwatched.

I've chosen to join both movies into this because as you can no doubt tell, they are ..... rather alike. This is in all honestly completely accidental but for all their similarities, they still just work and have their own voice as such. They both stand up as really great movies - The Raid is the better of the two, but that's like asking if you want to bang Hugh Jackman or Chris Hemsworth - I'm sure one would be better but who cares? The reality is that Dredd unforuntatly and unfairly suffered from people associating the 2012 version witht he 1995 Stallone shitfest. The Raid missed out because..... an Indonesian film???? What?

Do yourselves a favor - watch em. They are both awesome shows of what independant film can do to upstage and blow away anything Hollywood vomits up.

http://www.reelviews.net/php_review_template.php?identifier=2521

http://www.reelviews.net/php_review_template.php?identifier=2449

Just a warning - the violence is no holds barred in both.

[Captain Untouchable]

I watched Dredd recently, and was blown away. Sure, it was a movie filled with explosions and insane visuals, but it managed to be surprisingly subtle. The characters managed to avoid being exaggerated the way you'd expect from a comic book movie: even Dredd felt like a real and plausible person, rather than being a caricature. There wasn't any unnecessary drama, they didn't go overboard with the exposition... it's hard to quantify, but it all just worked.

[Darth Turbogeek]

Exactly. Dredd is full of subtle touches after the first 10 minutes that add a layer of reality and yeah, you could actually imagine Dredd being real.

The one thing that only Dredd fans would notice is that the preps didn't really know who Dredd was and didn't fear him as a force of nature like in the comics. The Judges certainly knew, but kinda struck me as a Dredd fan that Ma-Ma should have shit herself when she found out who was coming up the building.

Minor fanboi quibble only.

And also Karl Urban's jaw was the best actor of the whole film. Which isnt a belittlement, it's actually quite impressive how he could make it clear what Dredd was thinking with just his unshaven jaw.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

Dredd is awesome. :) I still need to buy it, but it was great when we saw it in theater. That's right, I watched Dredd before it was cool. :cool

The soundtrack is amazing.