I needed a fun movie, a movie that wouldn’t make me sad or make me think or make me wonder what is our purpose on this earth. So, I chose The Raid: Redemption. I have no idea why they needed ‘Redemption’ in the title but it’s basically about a raid.  Hence the first part of the title.

Here’s the quick version. 20 elite cops enter a building filled with one bad-ass gangster and, as far as I can tell, 1000 of the best martial art, machete-weilding fighters on the planet. Why EVERYONE in the building is so masterfully trained I have no idea but it makes for perhaps one of the best action films in a long time.

It works primarily because it gets rid of all the usual fluff. There are no girlfriends that have to be saved, no wrinkled grannies offering wise advice, no little kids shouting, ‘Dr. Jones! Dr. Jones!’ In fact, except for the opening scene, there aren’t any women in it at all. They aren’t needed. This is all about cops vs gangsters, gun vs gun, knife vs knife and fist vs fist.

It’s a totally fun, blazingly fast martial arts fight-fest with the most amazingly choreographed knife battles that I’ve ever seen.  Stabby stabby goodness.

At some point I’m sure Hollywood will remake this with Jason Statham and a hot ninja girl and lots of coke machines in the hallways.   The bad guys will become two-dimensional Russians, there will be a lot more explosions and sooner or later, Statham will have sweaty sex with one of the renters (Or fellow cops.)

Until then, though, this remains a great non-stop action movie.