The Raid 2: Berandal
Studio: Sony Pictures Classics
Directed by Gareth Evans
Mar 27, 2014
Web Exclusive
After surviving the events of 2011’s The Raid, rookie SWAT officer Rama finds himself drawn into a web of corruption and violence as he goes deep undercover to befriend the son of the Jakarta’s most notorious drug lord.
Gareth Evans’ The Raid—his second collaboration with star Iko Uwais following his 2009 debut Merentau—was a kick in the face to the martial arts/action genre, combining clean, straight-forward plotting with brutal, inventive action and very little else. With the new sequel The Raid 2: Berandal—“Berendal” means “thugs” or “hoodlums,” if you’re interested—Evans strangely decides to double down on the action and go in the exact opposite direction with the plot. Whereas the first film had all the lean, mean efficiency of the original Die Hard, the new film cribs from every major gangster film of the last forty years, creating an unwieldy two and a half hour amalgamation of The Godfather, The Departed and Eastern Promises. All of this is ably shot and acted, but it seems like an unwise choice for the sequel to a movie that touted its pacing as one of its greatest assets.
Once the film gets to the goods, though, it needs to be seen to be believed. Berandal takes the dynamic camera work and vicious, full-contact stunts work of the first film to gruesome extremes, throwing fists, feet, firearms, knives, machetes, baseball bats and claw hammers into a blender and reveling in the subsequent bloodbath. Particular stand-outs include a mud-and-blood soaked prison riot, one of the most inventive car chases of the last decade and a final showdown between hero and villain that’s simultaneously thrilling and exhausting. Action fans may be fidgety during the first hour, but the last half hour alone ranks it as one of the best martial arts films ever made.
www.sonyclassics.com/theraid2/
Author rating: 7.5/10
Average reader rating: 10/10
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