The Raid: Redemption (Gareth Evans, 2011)

A work of anti-humanist cinema of space and movement made all the more exhilarating for its lack of irony or bloat vis-a-vis the essence of its technique. Art expressed through the collision of mechanized men cut and choreographed to within an inch of its life. The argument has been made that the film resembles a video game, point being that it lacks significant character development and the plot is thin; which are both true, but miss the point. Proof that, by and large, critics are still tied to Aristotelian (by way of Robert McKee bullshit) concept of dramatic construction, and dramatic construction-period as the cinema’s only appropriate mode. You can’t just make a picture where a bunch of guys kick the shit out of each other. However, I would posit that you can make a picture where a bunch of guys kick the shit out of each other artfully. And artfully they do. So while the camera may be shaky and the cutting may be fast; this is not the chaos cinema that everybody won’t shut up about. It takes skill, craft, and yes art to shoot these things right. All of which Evans has in abundance. An intuitive formalist, he knows that this picture doesn’t need anything more, so outside of a few half-hearted stabs at feeding the audience some pathos, he just lets the premise play out without gussying it up. And play out it does. Like an adrenaline shot to the gonads. Who could ask for anything more!