Remaking a classic is always tough; no matter how hard creatives work, the weight of established glory can tank even an otherwise decent project. Cross-cultural remakes are even more fraught, adding multiple layers of new context and infinite new ways to ruin something that was probably a bad idea to begin with.
Every new piece of information that surfaces about the apparently still upcoming remake of 2011's The Raid: Redemption has fans up in a new outrage. The original director will not be returning, the film will now be set in a low-income Philadelphia neighborhood, and while the original film's director has a producer credit, the other name in that role is the infamous Michael Bay.
The Raid: Redemption is an extremely simple film. Iko Uwais stars as Rama, a newcomer to a special paramilitary deployment unit in Jakarta, Indonesia. Rama is part of a team of armed law enforcement officers tasked with laying siege to a decrepit high-rise to capture a powerful crime lord. The premise feels like a classic video game narrative, Rama and his teammates must ascend from floor to floor and defeat the countless enemies that try to stop them. The violence is overwhelming, genuinely gruesome at times, yet almost endlessly cathartic.
Despite being the rookie of his squad, Rama stands out and survives thanks to his mastery of Pencak Silat, a traditional Indonesian martial art. The action is absolutely masterful, the film genuinely defined and popularized John Wick's fast-paced fight scenes three years before the Baba Yaga hit screens. Everything that made the film special was lightning in a bottle, it came out of nowhere, made legends out of its director and star, and couldn't be recaptured, even by its decent but inferior sequel. Unfortunately, Hollywood has been trying to recreate the film since its release, and its newest called shot looks pretty rough.
Less than one month after the release of The Raid: Redemption, American studios began threatening their own take on the film. Hollywood is notoriously eager to remake films in English, just to save American viewers from tripping over Bong Joon-ho's "one-inch-tall barrier." Sony subsidiary Screen Gems was originally set to produce, supposedly with aid from the original production company XYZ Films. During that period, both Chris and Liam Hemsworth were considered to star. Eventually, Boss Level star Frank Grillo was announced as the man to fill Iko Uwais' shoes.
A year later, Taylor Kitsch replaced him and the film was being painted as extremely similar to the original. By 2015, both the star and the production company dropped the project, leaving XYZ to move ahead with director/producer Joe Carnahan of Smokin' Aces fame. That was in 2017, then five years passed without a word. The original film's writer/director Gareth Evans was not considered to direct the remake but has been listed as a producer in every version of the remake. On January 10th, 2022, Patrick Hughes was announced as the director, despite dropping out of that position seven years earlier, Evans is still on as executive producer, XYZ is still in control, and Michael Bay has joined as producer.
Criticizing the output of Michael Bay is, at this point, overdone material. His many trespasses as a director are well cataloged, but he serves as a producer far more often, and to comparably terrible results. Not everything he has touched is garbage, but he has a staggeringly awful track record with remakes. Friday the 13th, A Nightmare On Elm Street, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Amityville Horror, The Hitcher, and many more classic films ruined with Bay in the producer's seat. He's a pariah amongst tons of fans, but his films make money, so he'll always be around. He's not directing, but the person who is doesn't inspire hope either.
Hughes is best known for The Hitman's Bodyguard and its sequel, The Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard. The first film, a poorly received action-comedy starring Ryan Reynolds and Samuel L. Jackson, made tremendous box office returns on a relatively small budget. Though its sequel was far less successful, that hit has made Hughes an in-demand action director. In 2014, when XYZ announced his directorial credit on The Raid, he was best known for directing Expendables 3.
Regardless of anyone's opinion of Hughes' output, it is almost inarguably diametrically opposed to The Raid. Hughes has almost exclusively created snarky, movie-star-driven, toothless studio action blockbusters. Hughes may be able to stretch himself to something more akin to the original's aesthetic and tone, but it's unlikely they'd hire him unless their desire was something similar to his output. Hughes is a poor choice to capture anything similar to the original, he's described his take with references to Zero Dark Thirty or Black Hawk Down. War movies from a very specific American perspective, which cuts to the heart of the problem.
The central problem with an American take on The Raid is not one with the cast and crew, none of the previous ideas would've been any better, there isn't a good way to remake this film in America. The Raid's narrative, setting, and even its action are entirely built around the nation it was created in. Gareth Evans came up with the film in the process of making a documentary about Pencak Silat, a huge part of the impetus for its creation came from the desire to show the world this martial art. Iko Uwais was not an actor when production started, he was a delivery man who'd spent his life practicing Silat. All of the action in this action movie is based around an indigenous martial art that is native to the film's home nation. Moving this film to the United States, robbing it of all of its cultural importance, completely kills its purpose. Those issues should stop the film before it starts, and that's before addressing the challenging cultural implications of cops engaging in violent drug raids in the US.
The Raid cannot be remade in America in any meaningful way. If this project goes through, rather than falling apart like the past couple attempts, whatever they end up with will be a pale imitation stealing a better film's name. Hopefully, audiences have the good sense to cross the one-inch-tall barrier and expose themselves to one of the greatest martial arts films of all time the way it was meant to be seen.