Click here for the review of The Raid: Redemption

SPOILERS must be tagged with the "SPOILER" tag!

I really want to see this, too bad none of my local theaters are playing it. I'd love to see Jason Statham get the lead role in the remake.

Roger Ebert gave this one star for the same reason he hated Kick Ass. He's just not into this type of movie in general, one that showcases over the top violence in a comic book style way.

What really bugged me about his review is how ignorant Ebert was, he said that he didn't know what country the film took place in, like he needed subtitles to tell him where the film was taking place, our films don't need on-screen graphics to tell use where the film takes place, so why should foreign films do the same? It's obvious to anyone with common sense that the film is taking place in Indonesia since A( it was filmed there and B( it has a large Muslim population(another thing Ebert failed to grasp) i'm fine with him not liking the film, but missing obvious details like that made him look even more foolish then Armond White.

I really enjoyed The Raid. I think James' review makes the action sound more stylized than it seemed to me. The fights were incredibly vicious, and the goal seemed to be to present an optimal/idealized version of deadly combat between skilled fighters rather than "half-ballet", which implies an artistic objective.

Plot-wise, I don't think it's correct to say that the SWAT team "stumble into the midst of a massacre". They stumble into a trap, and most of them are massacred.

The rest of the review was right on the money, IMHO. 3 1/2 stars from me.

This movie was fantastic. I loved it. Best fight scenes I've watched in a long time. I really doubt I'll bother with the American remake though.

I have to agree with Roger Ebert that this is one boring and overrated movie.It is like watching someone playing a videogame with no plot,no dialogue,no character and no humanity.I don't think it is ignorant that he didn't know the country because it never says where the movie it taking place.I only knew Indonesia from reading reviews before hand.I would challenge anyone to tell me what city in Indonesia they are in from the movie dialogue.The movie is just an exhibition in stunt work and fight choreography.If they do an English remake they may have to do a little bit more writing or else they will have the same 8 people in the audience as I saw today.

I would call this movie hard core action porn and like it's sex porn equivalent it is just as boring (degrading??)with the same level of acting and writing with the sex scenes replaced with bare knuckle carnage.I wonder why the movie Dreamers got an NC-17 and this did not.I guess beating and killing people in graphic brutal ways is more acceptable to in our minds than nudity and lovemaking.

I really wish you didn't feel the need to insult people who enjoy this kind of movie.

He has kind of admitted his review wasn't fair in his blog:
http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2012/03 ... _hell.html
Ebert normally rates a movie not based on its goal (which can be anything), but how well it has achieved it. By all accounts The Raid's goal is simply to provide wall to wall action via a constant barrage of bare knuckle fight scenes. Apparently, it does this extremely well and by Ebert's own rule of thumb, should have got a good rating.

Good call, Nitrium. I read that article just recently.

A movie like this really just comes down to personal taste and which angle you're approaching it from. JB came away from this one grateful that we still have movies that don't aim squarely for a PG-13 and (more importantly) don't ruin the fights with MTV-style editing. But that's not a selling point for everyone (although it is for me).

Ever since Ebert's 4-star review of "Knowing," it has become much harder to take his reviews without a least a few grains of salt.

Agreed, I find it ironic that he bashes other films for having a so-called "idiot plot" yet Knowing has the biggest idiot plot of any film i've ever seen.

Sorry your offended but the movie was boring in the same way porn is boring.I am not sure if your insulted because I criticized the movie or sex porn? If you like it that is okay but all I saw was a bunch of guys in nondescript rooms beating the heck out of each other for no narrative reason.They could have just started the movie in a big white room with actors wearing paperbags that have no names,no narrative or dialogue and have them just kill each other for 90 minutes with no explanations.That would not have been any less interesting than a pizza delivery guy having his clothes ripped off by his impossibly hot customer then having sex for no logical reason.



There is no idiot plot here because even the slowest audience member who has never seen a film in his life would notice there is no plot,character or dialogue at all.There is nothing in the movie but good stuntwork and that is not enough to make a movie.There is a little less violence in Goon which is brutal in it's own way but it is real movie that tells a real story with character that you like.Raid has none of the requisite of a movie or a story and Ebert's first reaction was correct this movie is empty calories like a KFC Double Down.

Worse still, his 4-star review of the utterly terrible Signs.
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbc ... 20305/1023
He jettisoned copious credibility with that one.

Anyway, IMO The Raid looks like solid entertainment. Not the sort of thing I'd head to the movies for, but definitely worth a rental.

I wasn't refering specifically to The Raid with that quote, I was refering to some of his other reviews where he criticized a film for having an "idiot plot"(This Means War being one example) just about every he's criticized for being "idiotic" looks like a work of art compared to something as prfoundly stupid as Knowing.

The Signs review was abysmal as well, i'm surprised he didn't take any issue with the incredibly lame twist, which is basically one huge plot hole.

Exactly. And now contrast that review with the one for Star Trek: Nemesis, which came out in the same year:
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbc ... 30305/1023
Ebert has no consistency (or credibility). How can you find so many plot and technology issues with one sci-fi movie, but none with other? If you read both reviews together, you would think they were written by entirely different people.

That's always been my biggest issue with Ebert, I may disagree with James on a fairly regular basis, but at least he has a consistent style, so there's no confusion as to why he likes one film and dislikes another. While I do enjoy reading some of Ebert's reviews, he frequently contradicts himself, and sometimes he barely even talks about his opinion on the film itself and goes off on random tangents that have little if anything to do with the actual film, sometimes I can deal with it, other times it just gets distracting and only further confuses people as to what his actual opinion on the film is. I also hate the derogatory tone he sometimes takes toward those who might disagree with his reviews, like in his reviews for Universal Soldier, Battle:LA and this film to an extent, if he dosen't like that film then that's perfectly fine, but that DOES NOT mean he has to insult the people who god forbid, actually want to see the film themselves and form their own opinions

I've been reading Ebert and James since their reviews were available on the internet (in James case, right back to newsgroups days). I agree with James' about 90% of the time. I used to agree with Ebert by about the same amount, but in the last 12 years or so, IMO Ebert has really been going downhill. Like you say, often off on huge tangents, disparaging, politically biased (I'm also left-leaning, but don't need it shoved down my throat in a MOVIE review) and, worst of all, inconsistent. I still have a great deal of respect for him (he's practically a living encyclopaedia of cinema), but sometimes he starts to wear a bit thin.
His review of The Raid is definitely a case in point. His review apparently deliberately insults anyone that liked it.

I believe Ebert's tastes have changed significantly since his brush with death. This isn't surprising; major life changes (such as flatlining and being revived, then having to learn to live without eating, drinking, or speaking) often provoke changes in perspective. I often agreed much more with the "old" Ebert than with the "new" one, but I haven't gone through what he has gone through in the last seven-or-so years.

The birth of my son two years ago also caused a shift in my perspective of some films, but I don't think it has been dramatic. When something happens that shifts one's entire life-view, that will make itself felt in the reception and discussion of things like movies, books, and television. I don't make excuses one way or the other; that's simply the way it is.

I can understand his tastes changing because of his experiences, but that dosen't excuse him from belitting those who disagree with his reviews.