"Somewhere in this block are two judges," a crime lord declares over loudspeakers in a concrete, locked-down tenement. "I want them dead." Is this the American remake of Gareth Evans' fantastic silat action pic The Raid? Nope. It's the first trailer for Dredd! As in, the second cinematic coming of Judge Dredd, the futuristic crime fighting officer made famous by Sylvester Stallone, here replaced by a serious-faced, robotic Karl Urban, whose lower jaw we're going to be seeing a lot of in the September reboot.
more »
As a member of the Jakarta police force, Rama (Iko Uwais) is one of dozens of SWAT agents about to be trapped within the concrete walls of a tenement building run by a nefarious slumlord, set upon by machete-wielding thugs and forced to fight his way out using knives, broken doorways, and at times, only his bare hands. The fighting style he uses to do so, leaving a trail of broken baddies in his wake, is silat -- a lightning-fast, bone-crunching Southeast Asian martial art that gets its best showcase in Gareth Evans’ festival sensation The Raid: Redemption.
more »
Despite the late addition of "Redemption" to the title of The Raid, there's little to no atonement to be had in this stripped-down action movie. These characters are not here to have some kind of emotional journey, they're here to kick ass. And so much ass is kicked over The Raid's 100 minutes that viewers may feel a little bruised themselves upon exiting, for the most part in a good way -- this is a film that serves as a remind of just how wonderfully cinematic violence can be.
more »
There was no shortage of stars coming through SXSW 2012, debuting films and projects as diverse as Joss Whedon's Cabin in the Woods to Lena Dunham's HBO series GIRLS. Take a look and see who else dropped in on Austin, Texas for the annual film festival, including: Channing Tatum, Jonah Hill, and their 21 Jump Street crew, Willem Dafoe, Al Gore, Johnny Knoxville, Melissa Leo, Matthew McConaughey, Jack Black, Aubrey Plaza, Gabrielle Union, Bobcat Goldthwait, new director (!) Matthew Lillard, two Broken Lizards, model-turned-actress Dree Hemingway, and more.
more »
This week at SXSW Movieline caught up with director Gareth Evans, whose Indonesian martial arts actioner The Raid: Redemption is set to knock your socks off later this month courtesy of Sony Classics. (Haven’t heard of the martial arts form silat? You will, come March 23.) With his film steadily collecting kudos left and right, Evans is already thinking ahead to his Raid sequel (working title: Berandal), and an insane, dangerous-sounding four-on-one car fight he plans on working into the mix.
more »
