Written In September 2014
In 1995 Sylvester Stallone made this movie
It was generally met by revulsion from fans, critics, and audiences alike. So in 2012 these three came together
To right the egregious wrong that had been done to this great man
This amendment took the shape of this glorious piece of art
Meanwhile, in 2011, these three gentlemen came together for the second time ever
And together they made something that was nothing short of beautiful
I think I’m gonna cry, excuse me just one second…
Anywho, in 2012 the above Indonesian action picture got it’s American release just a couple of months BEFORE Dredd was released. This led to a number of idiots upon Dredd’s release to comment
“I ain’t accusin’ anyone of anythin’. It’s just that yer movie has the exact same plot as me new favorite martial arts movie…”
“And yer movie came out a few months after I actually saw the damn thing!”
“So the way I see it, there are three possibilities.”
“One, you ripped off The Raid.”
“Two, you ripped of The Raid.”
“Or three!”
“You ripped off The *bleep*ing Raid!”
Not realizing that:
A. Alex Garland, the writer and producer of Dredd, had been working on the script for this damn movie since 2006
B. While The Raid began filming in March of 2011, Dredd had actually been filming since November of 2010.
C. A version of Dredd’s shooting script was actually leaked online in July of 2010. Implying that if anyone ripped anyone off here, it’s more likely that Gareth Evans was ripping of Alex Garland.
D. The two films were shot on two entirely separate continents, with The Raid of course being filmed in Indonesia and Dredd being mostly shot in Capetown and Johannesburg in South Africa.
E. Dredd was done shooting by the time The Raid was released, but was currently stuck in Post-Production.
In other words
DREDD DIDN’T RIP OFF THE RAID!
BUT, me being me, I thought it’d be kind of fun to compare and review the two. So wiggle on over my previous reviews right here
And we’ll get down to business!
So, here’s how we’re gonna do this. I’m gonna break this comparison up into a few categories and then I’ll determine which film I thought did the thing better. The categories will be the following:
- Best Hero
- Best Villain
- Best Supporting Cast
- Best Action
- Best Storytelling
Whoever scores the most out of five is declared the better movie, so with all that out of the way, let’s get started!
BEST HERO
Now from a basic character standpoint, these two are day and night. While Rama is a rookie cop who just wants to do the right thing and goes out of his way to be helpful and diligent, Dredd is a senior officer who’s been through the ringer and knows that are some people who deserve a break and some people who deserve to take a bullet to the head. This is also something that shows in how they fight as well; Rama’s style is elaborate and showy but it’s ultimately about getting through as many bad guys as he can while also taking out the bigger threats. Dredd’s style less flashy though, it’s pretty clear policy really, either shoot the dude dead or beat him dead. While Dredd just plows through his opponents like a human bulldozer, Rama spends as much time as he can just swerving around them like a race car around cones on his track.
Another thing that really shines a light on who these characters are is their attitude towards police corruption. When Dredd crosses paths with a corrupt judge he sniffs him out almost immediately, and when he does, he doesn’t let the guy talk his way out of the issue, he puts a bullet in his foot and smashes his throat with one of these puppies
He doesn’t react with surprise to realize that there’s corrupt judges on his tail, he acts like it’s just an annoying part of a pretty hard job that he’s been saddled with. While on the other side of that coin, Rama is absolutely furious when he realizes that Lieu. Wayhu is a dirty cop who’s in bed with Tama. He realizes that plenty of guys on the force are dicks, he has no issue dealing with and accepting that, but it’s nothing short of unbelievable to him that someone like Wayhu would even dare to turn his back on the thousands of people in this city depending on him to do the right thing.
Ultimately, this is a choice that comes down to personal preference. Of the two, Dredd is easily my favorite. But on the other hand, I think Iko Uwais might just be outacting Karl Urban here. So all in all, I’m gonna call it a draw.
BEST VILLAIN
While Dredd and The Raid’s heroes are pretty different, they actually have pretty similar villains. So I say we go over a quick list of some similar traits these two have
- Both are gang leaders
- Both are often seen with two thugs, one of which they favor and the other they abuse.
- Both have a certain taste for sadistic killings
- Both are defiant to their end with Tama mocking Lieu. Wayhu as he arrests him and Ma-Ma challenging Dredd to even try to kill her.
- Both are rather surprised by their eventual demises.
- Hell, they both even address the complex they reign over directly when the authorities arrive.
But that is where their similarities end. While Ma-Ma’s sadism is very much about pure aggression and letting people know who's really in charge, Tama’s sadism is very playful and jovial. Ma-Ma wantspeople to suffer, while Tama likes to see how people squirm, assuming they squirm at all.
I think the perfect example of this is in their respective opening scenes, Ma-Ma is being approached very timidly by her lackies who suggest to her that they skin these little pricks who trespassed on their turf, while Tama is seen standing against his desk with his two lackies on either side of him as he chows down on some noodles before pulling out a revolver and busting a cap in the head of six guys. Tama is as laidback as bad guys come, right down to the fact that he doesn’t even spend most of the movie fully dressed. While Ma-Ma just wants people to die.
Personally, while I’d say this makes Tama a more entertaining villain, but it doesn’t really make him interesting. Tama by his own admission is middle management. While Ma-Ma is the big boss. Tama’s the guy who works with corrupt cops, but Ma-Ma is the person who hires them. And even then, Ma-Ma’s got a lot more going for her as a character. We don’t really know a lot about Tama when we meet him, and that’s fine, we don’t need to know anything about him that doesn’t involve hitting people with a hammer when his gun runs out of bullets. Dredd however decided to go the extra mile and tell us a little bit our bad guy. And my God do you know why she’s so mad. The lady started out as a hooker who got cut up by her pimp and then came back and, excuse my language here, but I need to be frank, BIT HIS FREAKING DICK OFF! And then went and took over his business interests and became the biggest damn mob boss in her block. Which keep in mind, most of these blocks holds an entire city’s worth of people. This lady basically runs a city. Tama runs an apartment complex.
All in all, I gotta call it a tie again. Tama makes me smile more, but Ma-Ma leaves me more interested. I can’t choose between the two, they’re both terrific.
BEST SUPPORTING CAST
This one won’t be a hard choice. Dredd has a very small supporting cast, but it makes them count. The Raid has a supporting cast of about seven characters, not including it’s main antagonist, and while they do each make a certain impact, most of them have very unclear motivations and lack any genuinely interesting qualities.
That’s right fanboys, I just CRITICIZED The Raid! Your holy bastion of everything wonderful in a non-comic book action film has *GASP* flaws! Which I will now proceed to explain.
- Lieutenant Wayhu. How do he and Tama know each other? Why is the mob trying to kill him? What is his motivation in working for the mob? Why does he feel the need to kill the only surviving members of his team so he can get away with Tama? Why does he kill Tama and then attempt to kill himself instead of going ahead and killing Andi and Rama? The movie makes me ask all these questions and then responds to me with
Smooth move Evans, smooth move! - Sergeant Jaka. The movie sets him up as this great leader who’s an even better man and acts like his demise at the hands of Mad Dog is some horrible heart wrenching moment, when in reality he comes off as a pretty good leader and an overall decent human being, but the entire time I was watching this fight I was just thinking “Dude, you’re like a foot taller than this wacko! Just step on him!” And when Mad Dog actually does kill Jaka, I’m not really left as hurting as the movie wants me to be, in fact I’m feeling compelled to look at the score playing at the moment, as though it were a physical entity and say
- Officer Bowo. Rama at one point says that the man is stubborn as hell but he’s a good guy. I get the stubborn part but I really don’t get good guy. Every single action he takes throughout the movie is something that was in his best interest. He never once acts in the film that would suggest he’s someone capable of considering the feelings and best interest of others. He comes off like a guy who’s got anger issues more than anything else. I have nothing against the character, I found him to be a source of great humor throughout the first half of the film, but I never really saw a lot to this guy. He just told Rama off when he asked the sarge a question, got his ear shot, screamed at a guy while he stabbed him to death, threatened to haunt Rama if Gofar cut him while he’s recuperating, and then telling Gofar to find a bigger knife for Rama to get out the bullet in his leg. I don’t really remember anything else from the guy ultimately.
- Andi. Who the hell is this guy? No really, who the hell is he? He’s Rama’s older brother and one of Tama’s two henchmen, and that’s it! We know nothing else about this guy! Is he a criminal because he finds more fulfillment in the criminal lifestyle? Is he a police officer in deep cover? Was he already a police informant who just rose through the ranks of the criminal underworld? Gareth, do you have a reply?
Damn it Gareth! - Dagu does nothing. He is not a character. He’s an extra. He exists only to be shot by Wayhu when we find out he’s a corrupt officer. The end.
And now for the only two supporting characters in The Raid who I think are actually well rounded characters. Gofar and Mad Dog.
- Mad Dog is pretty simple. He likes punching people. He dislikes shooting his victims because it feels like it’s too quick and not much fun. He prefers to beat the living snot out of people until they’re made into a corpse because it’s what gets him off. He loves what he does and he does what he loves. And he’s played by the amazing martial artist Yayan Ruhian.
- Gofar. Average Joe who happens to live in Tama’s apartment complex, doesn’t want any trouble, just wants to get some medicine to his sick wife. Gets caught by the cops on his way inside and has to be escorted back to his room. Rama tries to be diplomatic with him and as his way of saying thank you for being a nice guy, he lets Rama and Bowo hide in his room while Tama’s thugs are on the prowl looking for them. He’s a good guy. I liked him.
So that’s two characters who have a clear dynamic and motivations, who also completely fulfill their purpose in the story. Out of a SEVEN PART SUPPORTING CAST!
Dredd on the other hand has only two supporting characters who are pulled off perfectly.
In one corner we have
Kay, he’s a drug dealer and a thug. He enjoys doing slow-mo, torturing people (which could possibly include rape), and playing mind games. He’s not terribly bright but he more than makes up for it by being a sadist. He is what you would typically define as an
He’s not a complex character, but he’s played very well. Every moment that it’s just him and Anderson, you can see the gears turning in his head as he’s trying to figure out just what to say to her so he can freak her out enough for him to get loose. It’s good stuff.
Speaking of Anderson, let’s chat about this girl.
Cassandra Anderson is a rookie judge at the start of this film and it kinda shows in parts. She’s a little shaky at times and a tad reluctant to actually shoot anyone. But by the end of the movie you know this chick is ready to be a judge. When you see this girl go from
to
You know she’s ready to unleash hell.
What I like about her though isn’t her progression from timid newbie to a beast of a policewoman, it’s her reasoning behind becoming a judge in the first place. She wants to make a difference in the world. She sees the screwed up things that are happening around her and she wants to change that, she wants to make things better. And that’s something I admire.
Point for Dredd!
BEST ACTION
Wait, that doesn’t look right, let me try something else real quick.
Yeah, that’s more like it! On with the review!
This one I’m just gonna call a tie on principle. Both movies make good use of their environments. Have good scores driving their fights. Are always intense. Are always bloody. And are always well shot and choreographed. Choosing between them is purely a matter of personal taste. If you like this you’ll love The Raid. If you prefer this, Dredd will not disappoint you.
BEST STORYTELLING
And we’ve come to the end, boy this was fun! We should do it again sometime, maybe with something nobody likes so that no one can be offended when I criticize it. But I’ll get to that later. The story in both films is pretty simple. Policeman goes into building. Policeman starts to do job. Things hit the fan. Policeman and his respective allies are trapped in building by the bad guy. Policeman has to go to the tippytop floor of the building confront bad guy. Bad guy is a big meanie poo. Heroic policeman stops the bad guy. End on positive note with a piece of modern music on the soundtrack.
It’s pretty simple stuff. And it’s pretty entertaining stuff. The devil however, is the in the details, as they say.
Dredd’s narrative is pretty simple and uncomplicated even when you get into the details. Judge Dredd is a good cop, although a bit of a cynic. Judge Anderson is a smart rookie with a neat power, but she’s a little bit uneasy at first. The two of them go through the Peach Trees block, do a drug bust, grab a gang member to interrogate back at the station, and then get stuck in the damn block when Ma-Ma realizes that “Oh bugger! One of my dimwit employees just got caught! He’s gonna spill the beans about our whole operation because he’s a complete moron! Great, now I gotta kill two judges!” Some gangbangers come and see if they can get a piece of the judges and fail miserably. Ma-Ma shoots up the entire floor they’re on hoping they’ll die. By some miracle they don’t. Dredd and Anderson squeeze Kay, the dimwit gang member they’ve been carrying, and find out that Peach Trees manufactures all the Slow-Mo in Mega City One. The two of them go out to find Ma-Ma, get distracted long enough for Kay to slip out of his constraints, who then proceeds to grab Anderson for a human shield/hostage. Dredd sets up a trap for the other group of moronic gangbangers who will try to kill him. Ma-Ma out of desperation calls up a group of corrupt judges who handily get their butts kicked by Dredd and an escapee Anderson. The two of them reach Ma-Ma’s compound and wreak havoc without much issue.
The Raid however seems to be under the impression that it can do what these movies did
While at the same time doing what these movies did
And I’m sorry Gareth, but that doesn’t work here. The next movie you did though, it worked beautifully, but not so much here.
You wound giving us a great martial arts movie but kind of a cluttered crime thriller. The plot goes as follows though, Rama is a good cop and a good man, no ifs, ands, or buts about it, who happens to have a pregnant wife. He goes in as a member of SWAT team, to go and find a trio of criminals and either take them out or bring them in. Unfortunately when it hits the fan when a little boy who lives in the building alerts a friend to the presence of the police who then alerts the big boss from upstairs himself, Tama. Tama waves this off and lets the raid go on as it was, proceeding to eventually alert the entire complex that if anyone kills just one cop they'l be getting to stay here rent free for the rest of their miserable life. An even larger pile of crap hits an even bigger fan and almost everyone except for about five cops are killed.
The survivors being Rama, Officers Dagu and Bowo, Lt. Wayhu, and Sgt. Jaka. Rama and Bowo are separated from the rest of the team with the latter unfortunately badly injured. In order to find the rest of the team, Rama opts to leave his friend behind with an apartment tenant who he’d earlier escorted back to their room. Rama is forced into a lengthy hand to hand combat confrontation, ending in him and his final opponent falling through a window and landing on a fire escape.
Meanwhile, Andi randomly decides to brutally murder two of the thugs Tama sent him out with. Rama wanders aimlessly through the complex before being met with his older brother, Andi, one of Tama’s henchmen. The two chat for a moment before Rama goes back out to face the bad guys and meet with his friends. Meanwhile, Sgt. Jaka is forced to be separated from Dagu and Lt. Wayhu. Jaka is then forced into a protracted hand to hand brawl with Mad Dog who proceeds to beat the man to death. Rama and Andi meet back up with their teammates where in Rama decides to take the fight back to Tama who incidentally saw Andi help Rama.
Tama leaves Andi’s fate to Mad Dog who strings him up in a freezer and beats the crap out of him repeatedly. Rama, Wayhu, and Dagu unleash hell in one of Tama’s meth labs and continue on to face the man himself. Our main hero’s “I’m a good brother” sense begins to tingle and he goes in to save his sibling from Mad Dog’s wrath. The two fight together and eventually kill Tama’s second man and make their way on up.
Finally, Wayhu reveals that he and Tama are actually working for the same people by killing Dagu. Tama however reveals to Wayhu that the higher ups actually set him up to die. Realizing that if Rama knows he’s corrupt and that if what Tama says is true, he’s screwed no matter what. Wayhu opts for the coward’s way out by killing Tama and attempting suicide. Rama and Andi however apprehend the corrupt old man when his gun fails. Andi gives his brother recordings of all of his boss’s dealings with corrupt cops. Rama and an injured Bowo walk home with a defeated Lt. Wayhu in tow and the film ends.
…
I had to describe the basic plot of The Raid in FIVE PARAGRAPHS! I could describe the plot of Dredd in one. Gareth, I know you wanted to tell a complex story, and lord knows I like me some complex action movies, I mean I’m a big fan of these in particular
But Gareth, listen to me. A grand story only works in the context of a grand premise. A crime drama/martial arts movie doesn’t work all that well in the context of a fight inside an apartment complex!
So yeah, as you may have guessed. Simplicity is key, IMHO. But I’ll give The Raid this, it may be overly complicated but the direction and the acting really do make you stop to care at a certain point. If a movie has a glaring flaw present but can you make not realize it while you’re watching the movie, it’s doing something very right.
Ultimately though, this is another one I’m gonna have to give this Dredd. It just told it’s story better. It flowed smoothly from point A to point B without any real hiccups. The Raid didn’t have any real hiccups either, but it doesn’t real flow from A to B, it goes from A to B to C and then D. Remember Gareth.
Keep
It
Simple
Stupid
The winner is, of course, Dredd!
FINAL VERDICT
Well it’s three ties and two wins in favor of Dredd, the winner of this inevitable comparison is in fact the dude with the helmet!
Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed this review!
