20 Action Movies From The 21st Century That Didn't Actually Suck

2. The Raid (2011)

Ong Bak
Sony Pictures Classics

Despite a production budget of just $1.1m, Indonesian action movie The Raid packs more inventiveness, impact and adrenaline into its running time that the majority of Hollywood blockbusters that cost a hundred times as much. Writer, director and editor Gareth Evans marked himself out as a talent to watch with his relentless, visceral and thrilling tale of urban warfare.

The plot is brilliant in its simplicity; twenty members of Jakarta's elite SWAT unit are out to infiltrate an apartment block in order to capture a local crime-lord, starting at the bottom and working their way up to the top. That's all the narrative that The Raid needs in order to deliver a series of frenetic fight sequences that leave the building strewn with bodies and broken bones.

With the setup out of the way in the first few minutes, the movie dives headlong into the action and doesn't pause for breath until the credits roll, providing a series of adrenaline-fueled scraps powered by brilliant choreography, frantic pacing, crisp editing and confident direction that instantly (and deservedly) saw The Raid labeled as one of the greatest action movies ever made.

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