This bullet-point action flick comes from Indonesia with a twist. It was written, edited and directed by Welshman Gareth Evans. Not that you'd really notice, it has all the hallmarks of a well-crafted contemporary Eastern martial arts movie, albeit with a soupcon of Die Hard, Executive Decision and District 13 lobbed in for good measure.

Plot here is functional at best, Rama (Iko Uwais) is part of a SWAT team sent into a run down apartment building ruled by drug overlord Tama (Ray Sahetapy). Rama bids farewell to his pregant wife and father, clearly there's more to this mission than meets the eye (It's blindingly obvious, but I won't spoil it for you here). He meets up with his team, headed by Sergeant Jaka (Joe Taslim) and Lieutenant Wahyu (Pierre Gruno), they enter the building and all Hell breaks loose.

By and large this is standard action fare, albeit one that has very little time for too much in the way of character development or narrative twists and turns (though there are a couple of double and triple crosses). To some extent this is all well and good when it comes to cringe-inducing, bone-crunching, popcorn-munching fight night fun, but there's little else to really sink your teeth into and whilst something like the aforementioned District 13 has a degree of social commentary and human drama to go alongside its dazzling stuntwork, this film is a frame upon which to hang some - albeit impressive - Pencak Silat scraps and scrapes.

Perhaps it might be seen as being overly picky, this film clearly just aspires to be a relentless action-fest, but, it doesn't quite have enough manic momentum or splutter-inducing kills to really be hokum of the highest order. Instead, it is a rather brutal, sometimes glib, series of similar fights, all impeccably choreographed, but, without much more to invest in they blur due to repetition and the film ultimately climaxes with a whimper rather a bang.

Still, it has some strong moments, a fight scene between Jaka and Mad Dog (Yayan Ruhian) is particularly good, as Joe Taslim does great work getting the audience to invest in his character thanks to a commanding performance. Meanwhile, Iko Uwais makes for a fine, if doe-eyed hero, his skills lying more in his fighting than his thesping. This is a film that is probably best consumed with beer and pizza, it's a solid action romp, but due to a lack of depth or any particularly memorable fight scenes (in comparison to, say, Oldboy's hallway fight of Ong Bak's virtuoso steadicam shot) it won't linger long in the memory.

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