20 Most Rewatchable Movies Of The 21st Century
12. The Raid (2012)
The best all-out action movie of the 21st century was made by a Welshman in Indonesia, entirely in the Indonesian language, and if you can't deal with that, then you clearly haven't experienced The Raid. The breakout film for writer-director Gareth Evans, The Raid introduces the world to traditional Indonesian martial art pencak silat by way of a Die Hard-esque plot, involving an elite police squad infiltrating and battling a building full of gangsters. Some of them have machetes, some of them have guns, and seemingly all of them are infected with some form of undiagnosed rage virus.
The choreography for The Raid's breathless fight scenes is what makes the film so obscenely entertaining, and Evans avoids the mistake made by so many modern action directors by simply stepping back and letting the action unfold in clear, simple takes. One fighter effortlessly taking centre stage is Iko Uwais, a martial arts superstar in the making, whose screen presence and easy charisma as the lead almost matches his skill at pretending to beat people up and make it look really convincing.
Anyone looking for a sequence in which a cop beats down a crook then repeatedly shoots him in the head at point blank range will find it here.