The Raid

Indonesia-based Welsh director Gareth Evans' highly praised action film trades plot complexity and character development for an intensely thrilling, relentlessly violent adrenaline-rush of a movie. From the very start it's clear it's not going to be an easy ride for the Indonesian special forces team. En route to Jakarta's worst neighbourhood they receive their mission brief: to put an end to crime lord Tama's operations. But he lives on the top floor of a 15-storey tower block and each level below him is packed with ferociously violent criminals who are armed to the teeth and also martial arts experts; and because their mission is genuinely secret, the Swat team has absolutely no back-up available. From the moment they enter the dingy, soaring edifice it's a non-stop carnival of exquisitely raucous, superbly choreographed brutal action, feeling rather like a collision between a John Woo movie and a multi-level shoot-'em-up video game. Can the state's men possibly survive the odds stacked against them? Also starring Iko Uwais and Joe Taslim. In Indonesian with English subtitles.