Rama (Iko Uwais) wakes up early and does his morning routine work out. He says goodbye to his pregnant wife. He speaks little to his father but says to him, "I'll bring him back" before he leaves for the day. You see Rama is part of an Indonesian SWAT team and today they are going into an apartment block run by Tama (Ray Sahetapy), a fearless gang (?) leader. Guarding Tama are his two bodyguards, Mad Dog (Yayan Ruhain) and Andi (Doni Alamsyah). The SWAT team gets through the first couple of floors with no problem, but when they are spotted on the sixth floor all hell breaks loose. Since most of the tenants in the apartment block are lowlifes, Tama makes an announcement saying anyone who kills a cop can live there for free. All of sudden, everyone is after the SWAT team. Soon there group is down to five. They split into two groups. Rama takes injured Bowo (Tegar Satrya) to a man he believes can help. Meanwhile the other three struggle to stay alive. Tama is feeling a little impatient and sends Mad Dog and Andi to hunt down the remaining police officers. Mad Dog finds the three holed up an in apartment. He gets in a fight with Sergeant Jaka (Joe Taslim) and after a long, exhausted fight snaps his neck. Rama leaves Bowo in a safe apartment as he tries to find the other members of the team. He fights numerous people along the way (really a ridiculous amount) and just when you think he has had enough and won't be able to go on, he runs into Andi. Well, more like Andi grabs him and drags him into an empty apartment. Turns out that Andi and Rama are brothers that haven't seen each other in six years. Andi tries to convince Rama to leave but Rama doesn't want to leave the other officers behind. Andi lets him go, but he forgot about the surveillance cameras and his betrayal to Tama is caught on tape.
This is a great action film. It has a simple plot and within the first ten minutes draws you into the movie. Sure, you're not positive about the plot yet but it unfolds as you continue watching. With great lighting and crazy camera work it keeps your eyes glued to the screen. They did a great job setting up the bad guys. They had the SWAT leader really build him up making him sound like the most intimidating person. Then when it cuts to him, he is just eating noodles, doesn't seem that harmless (more of a loser really), but then he goes on to kill five people. You change your mind about him after that. Plus the fight scenes were incredible. I would hate to be the one asking them to do the scene over and over again. I'm pretty sure there was one time (and I don't know if they added this later), but someone got hit and you could see water coming off of his drenched (from sweat) t-shirt. And it wasn't just one or two really good fight scenes, it lasted throughout the whole movie basically. I would like to read the script because I doubt it was more than sixty pages even though the movie was an hour and half. I'm sorry, I just really enjoyed these fight scenes. They were gritty, bloody, intense, and incredibly exhausting (I was getting tired for them).
Rating: *****
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