Mere hours after escaping the hellscape high-rise seen in The Raid, to protect his family Rama agrees to a mission involving being sent to prison to befriend Uco, the son of crime lord Bangun and upon his release join their organisation to gather evidence of their ties to corrupt police officers and politicians.
Although The Raid 2 was written before The Raid (and originally titled Berandal, Indonesian for thug), the events of the latter are integrated by declaring that Tama, the overlord of the tenement slum, was a small part of the much larger web of crime, conspiracy and corruption that Rama has now been tasked with unmasking.
The deceptively simple setup soon mushrooms into a full-scale crime epic taking in all echelons of organised crime; from designer-suited mobsters issuing orders from expensive offices, to machete-wielding hitmen mercilessly carving up anonymous targets and bug-eyed junkies filming cheap and nasty porn, the grimy underbelly of Jakarta is exposed in all its seedy glory.
Despite the film’s premise being of Rama going undercover, much of the story is driven by Uco’s ambitions to advance within his father’s organisation and his frustration with the old man’s lack of bloodlust in the face of a shaky truce with a Japanese crime family. His increasingly unstable behaviour (when a call girl calls him a debt collector, he almost loses it), alliance with ruthless rising gangster Bejo, and scheming against everyone around him can only lead to tragedy and death, and while the progression of his actions may be a little predictable, its impact is in no way dulled by its familiarity.
There are sections of the story where Rama is completely absent, and it gives us time to get to know the film’s supporting killers such as homeless hitman Prakoso (Yayan Ruhian, The Raid’s Mad Dog) who kills to support his ex-wife and son he’s not allowed to see; Bejo’s silent and nameless executioner whose climactic battle with Rama is easily the equal of anything to occur in the first film; and the memorable assassin duo of the self-explanatorily named Baseball Bat Man and Hammer Girl, who are intriguing enough to warrant their own spin off.
The action focuses less on pencak silat than the first film, although with guns largely eschewed in favour of melee weapons and bone-snapping street fighting, the violence is no less brutal, and Iko Uwais is still given ample opportunity to showcase his martial arts talent, his hands, feet, knees and elbows blurring at speeds that rival Jet Li or Tony Jaa. Freed from the confines of a crumbling tower block, Gareth Evans’s visual flair is allowed room to manoeuvre, and amidst the brutal action choreography are moments of stylistic subtlety, such as a spray of blood on long grass a fraction of a second before a battered man stumbles past or a shotgun hidden under a table reflected in a puddle of water.
Even though the film is pushing two and a half hours by the time the credits roll, it never once feels bloated or dragging and when the story is over you’ll be willing it to continue.
Overall Verdict: A much deeper tale than the relentless action of its precursor, The Raid 2 is a modern classic worthy of comparison to the likes of Infernal Affairs, and neatly sets things up for the concluding chapter of the trilogy.
Special Features:
Director’s Commetary
The Next Chapter: Shooting a Sequel
Reviewer: Andrew Marshall