Russian Raid

Russian Raid (Russkiy Reyd) (2020)

Runtime: 105 long minutes

Directed, starring, and from a bunch of different Russians

Or: When messageboard discussions go wrong. I say that as if it was not for talk a few weeks ago in a thread, I would have had no knowledge of this motion picture... which actually is called Russian Raid in its native tongue and its title is not a cheap attempt by an American company to attract nerds like us that love The Raid. Unlike my typical M.O., the trailer was watched and I was not completely sold. Last night I made the streaming purchase and well, it wasn't the most satisfying several bucks spent.

Now, it is not a purchase I completely regret. It would have been better if the ex-Spetnaz soldier lead (Russian Christian Bale) had teamed with random competent soldiers/fighters instead of young meathead MMA annoying buffoons... at least there was Eurotrash fighting each other (in a not so polished manner, to be frank) while Eurodance served as the soundtrack. Seeing large men wielding medieval axes and attacking our “heroes” was at least an uncommon sight. There was also gunplay which did not rise about standard. The plot, though: “bewildering” is a good term.

To be frank, the storytelling is incredibly piss-poor; there are multiple characters that are present and I pondered too often, “Who in the hell is that? What is their purpose? What in the blue hell is going on?” Then there is the plot itself, which has Russian Christian Bale lead in those MMA clowns, a corporate A-hole and some hangers-on into a factory for... a corporate takeover. No, really. It's even more inane in execution than on paper and eventually I totally lost interest in this nonsense because it should have been at least a little bit fun instead of being perplexed too often and seeing action that did not often light my ass on fire. I know others enjoyed this much more than I did; personally, this was a disappointment which will happily be forgotten soon.