The Raid is a 2011 Indonesian action thriller film written and directed by Gareth Evans and produced by Ario Sagantoro.

[6] The film stars Iko Uwais, Joe Taslim, Donny Alamsyah, Ray Sahetapy and Yayan Ruhian.

The film follows an Indonesian National Police tactical squad that is deployed to raid a ruthless drug lord's apartment block in the slums of Jakarta, only to be encircled by the criminals, forcing them to fight their way through the complex.

After its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), The Raid received positive reviews from critics.

Both films showcase the traditional Indonesian martial art of pencak silat, with fight choreography led by Uwais and Yayan Ruhian.

Together with his lieutenants Andi and Mad Dog, Tama runs the block and allows criminals and addicts to rent rooms under his protection.

Tama calls in reinforcements, including a pair of snipers, who pick off the officers guarding the block's exterior and a group of gunmen, who destroy their SWAT vehicle.

Tama cuts the lights and announces over the PA system that the rest of the officers are on the sixth-floor stairwell and that he will grant permanent residence to those who kill them.

Dropping to the room below, the team struggles to fend off Tama's thugs; Alee, Hanggi, and the unnamed officer are killed and Bowo is gravely wounded.

With more of Tama's reinforcements approaching, the team splits into two groups: Jaka, Dagu and Wahyu retreat to the fifth floor, while Rama and Bowo ascend.

Rama encounters the machete gang and defeats them in a long fight, tackling their leader through a window and plummeting onto a fire escape below.

As Rama, Bowo and Wahyu leave, Andi turns around and walks back to the apartment block, smiling for the first time.

It was in that country that he met Iko Uwais, a Silat practitioner who was then working as a delivery man for a phone company based in Jakarta.

[16] With Merantau, some fans complained the action sequences took too long to appear since the first 45 minutes of the film laid emphasis on character development, backdrop (specifically, the Indonesian culture) and drama.

[21] The actors that make up the key members of the police squad were sent to bootcamp military training with KOPASKA, where they learned how to use weapons, and how to perform strategic attack and defense techniques.

[33][34] Deals were also made with distributors from Russia, Scandinavia, Benelux, Iceland, Italy, South Korea and India, during the film screening at the TIFF.

[36] Overseas, in its Sony Pictures Classics debut in the United States on 23–25 March 2012, The Raid: Redemption grossed $220,937 from 24 theaters for a location average of $15,781.

[37] For its widest opening release weekend in the United States and Canada on 13–15 April 2012, the film grossed $961,454 from 881 theaters, and ranked 11th overall.

[38] In Indonesia, approximately 250,000 people watched the film in the first four days of release, and it was considered a great turnout for a country that only has about 660 theater screens nationwide.

The website's consensus reads, "No frills and all thrills, The Raid: Redemption is an inventive action film expertly paced and edited for maximum entertainment.

[45] Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian gave the film 5 out of 5 and said, "This violent, intense and brilliant bulletfest from Indonesia puts western action movies to shame.

"[48] Robert Koehler of Variety praised the director, writing, "Taking the genre to a higher level of intensity, the Welsh-born Evans continues what he started in previous Indonesia-set actioner "Merantau," but this picture will seal his cult status.

"'[50] Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly called it "fists of fury mixed with torture porn," noting the variety of gory action sequences but criticizing the incoherent narrative.

[51] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film one star out of four; he criticized the lack of character depth, and noted, "the Welsh director, Gareth Evans, knows there's a fanboy audience for his formula, in which special effects amp up the mayhem in senseless carnage.

At the 2012 Maya Awards, which is dubbed by local media as the Indonesian version of the Golden Globes, the film received 10 nominations.

[citation needed] While developing The Raid in script form, Evans started to toy around with the idea of creating a link between it and his initial project, Berandal.

[80] On 22 August 2014, Hughes revealed that describes his version as being in the vein of Black Hawk Down and Zero Dark Thirty with 12 integral roles.

[85] A stop-motion short depicting the plot of The Raid as clay-animated cats, made by Lee Hardcastle released on 11 May 2012, was included in the special features disc.