Spoilers for The Raid are contained in this review.
With a new member of the family having recently arrived, the chances of getting out to the cinema will be greatly lessened, so I will be looking back on the new releases, but on DVD/Blu-ray (or any of the other countless ways now available), so they'll just be a few months late.
Gareth Evans' first film in the series was one of the best action films of the last ten years, it achieved exactly what it set out to do. Create a fast paced action film, the kind of which that are becoming quite rare, plus it's final fight is one of the most tense finales to any film I have seen. All of the carnage and twists had built to a point where you, maybe without realising it, invested in these characters and wanted to see them make it out alive.
The Raid 2 picks up roughly two hours after the end of its predecessor, Rama and the other survivors are talking to a police officer whose job is to investigate corruption within the force, seeing what Rama has achieved, he quickly offers him a place on the team. At the same time, we see another act of violence that will force the family man in Rama's hand.
Iko Uwais, the man who plays Rama, is given a lot more to do in this film with his character. In the first film, we see a very (very, very) capable police officer, especially in moments of extreme pressure, who goes into a fortress like drug den to bring his brother home. But here, having gone undercover, there is a weight placed on his shoulders as he does things that he can't possibly be completely okay with, but has to focus on the endgame. One scene with his new boss, with two prostitutes, really shows the guilt and uneasiness he has with this assignment and lengths he will push himself to succeed.
The quotes pasted all over the marketing for this film regarding its action left it with quite a considerable level of expectation, especially considering what the first film had delivered and some of the set pieces we have seen in recent years. Thankfully, it lives up to the hype in the action category, here Evans and his army of trained martial artists get to go big. The two stand out sequences of the film come towards the end of the film. The first a car chase, although that is being unfair, it's a car chase, a gun fight and four man brawl (in one car) all at the same time. The second, as with the first film, is the finale fight of the film, it's gruelling, painful and beautifully choreographed. A bench mark for future one on ones.
The film is an 18 and justifiably so. Whilst watching this, you will see people demean and humiliate others in the cruelest ways and also some of the most brutal and vicious murders committed to film (or digital as is the case with The Raid 2). It is not for the faint of heart, but nor does it linger on the aftermath. What it does show though is the damage and effectiveness of hand to hand combat and refreshingly moves away from an over reliance on gunfights and overblown CGI created chaos.
Like all good sequels, The Raid 2 takes everything from the first film, makes it bigger and fills out the world in which these characters are living in. Obivously, when a film is set entirely within a tower block, there is only so much you can learn of the outside world. But through quick lines of dialogue and the reactions of characters, we are given just enough to be able to imagine the world outside. But here, we get it all, we find out just how corrupt the whole city is and to a certain degree how futile the original films operation was.
An undoubted improvement on the first film, despite a slightly padded out middle hour that at times seems to be circling action sequences, but one that when it gets into its last forty five minutes is one of the best action films you will ever see.
Director: Gareth Evans
Writer: Gareth Evans
