“Writer-director Gareth Evans doesn’t simply surpass this brutal martial arts epic’s predecessor – no, with this film, Evans has set a high bar for any would-be action filmmakers out there in terms of pacing, ferocity, and sheer scale.”
The Raid 2: Berandal
Release date: April 11 (USA, wide)
Director: Gareth Evans
Stars: Iko Uwais, Yayan Ruhian, Arifin Putra
Running time: 150 minutes
MPAA rating: R
Set almost immediately after 2011’s The Raid, Berandal throws super cop Rama deep into the underworld after he’s recruited to root out the connections between crime boss Bangun (Tio Pakusodewo) and the city’s chief of police. And that means getting close to Bangun’s dangerously ambitious son (Arifin Putra) all the while upstart gang leader Bejo (Alex Abbad) pulls the strings that will push the local Indonesian and Japanese gangs into a war.
Although it’s packed with multiple crisscrossing plots, The Raid 2 never requires a scorecard: typically, if they’re trying to murder Rama, they’re dirty. If they’re not trying to murder Rama, they’re probably still dirty. Election-levels of depth this ain’t, with Evans focusing less on the psychology of his miscreants and killers, and more on the fatal mix of ambition and cruelty that drive them.
That’s perhaps the most impressive feat of Evans’ sequel – besides the kinetic, bloody, and memorable fights, that is – it never loses its clarity, serving as a martial arts film in a crime movie’s skin (The Raid was a thriller turned martial arts movie), matching the tempo of a musical. And star Iko Uwais glides through the entire film, creating wrecks of human bodies through ever-escalating setpieces.
Evans pushes his camera in close enough so that you can see the variations of the native martial art Silat being used throughout, while still providing enough visual context so that we know where the action is moving relative to the previous shots. For Evans, it’s crucial that you see every limb bent, busted, and deformed in fights that can be cramped and frighteningly claustrophobic in environments as cramped as the backseat of an SUV, and as open and chaotic as a muddy field in a prison.
When a deaf-mute girl slaughtering a handful of Yakuza in a subway car isn’t even one of the top five fights in your film, you know you’re on to something.
Evans has also filled his sequel out with some watchable villains, including the aforementioned trio of Pakusodewo, Putra, and Abbad, the latter bringing an almost demonic calm to his performance as a limping, gloved, shades-wearing boss whose eccentricity masks an easy cold-bloodedness. Japanese crime film mainstay Kenichi Endo (Violent Cop) is joined by Ryuhei Matsuda (Taboo) to bring some outsider cool to the proceedings, professional criminals who think they’re above the oncoming bloodbath until they’re not.
Through it all, Uwais gets a chance to flex his dramatic (as well as martial) muscles in a way that neither The Raid nor his first collaboration with Evans, Merantau has allowed him to. Rama’s a good man being forced to do bad things. Uwais is still a bit stiff (he still communicates seriousness by looking off into the middle distance), but the actor has more room to develop his character this time out, with an array of characters to play off of and refine his own role.
It’s still much too soon to declare The Raid 2 a “great” film, but in the moment, it’s an excellent piece of action cinema, that may just serve as reference material for other action filmmakers.