Holy crap.

‘The Raid: Redemption’ has about as much plot as Donkey Kong, but you aren’t going to care.
There isn’t a lot of acting on display, and you’re not going to care. The twists are all familiar to fans of action film, and you’re not going to care.

None of that stuff is the point here.

The point is that Silat, the national martial art of Indonesia, is astonishingly photogenic. So photogenic and bad-ass that you will gladly watch people use it against each other for 90 minutes even though there’s very little else going on.

Our hero is a SWAT-type policeman. He’s sent on a raid of a building controlled by a ruthless drug lord and filled with thugs and addicts who will be rewarded for repelling the invasion. This is more of a video-game setup than a movie plot, really, but so was ‘Game of Death’, and if you don’t think that was awesome I don’t know how to talk to you. Feel free to see yourself out.

The cops have to fight their way, floor by bloody floor, to the 15th, where the big boss lives. Most of them die before the third, but our baby-faced hero has serious skills and an unexpected ally.

The last mini-boss fight has to be over 10 minutes, and I wasn’t bored for a second.

I bore quite easily.

The fighting is intense, uncomfortably brutal and elegant. Think of it as Bourne-fu that doesn’t need jump-cuts to look amazing. Or like the fighting in Ong-Bak, but less candy-ass.

Maybe you don’t like martial arts movies. Maybe you are allergic to awesome sauce. Maybe you just wanna watch ‘The Notebook’ again. In those cases, you get a pass. Everyone else is required to see this thing.

Get on it.