Starting with the contentious father-son dynamic between Bangun and Uco, The Raid 2 drops Rama into a world of duplicitous criminals in which there really is no such thing as loyalty. Surrounding Rama is a slew of new villains who are far more defined than the original’s cartoonish nemeses. But as played by Uwais, Rama isn’t meant to have dimensions: He’s supposed to be a stoically righteous champion for good, and the actor imbues the character with unyielding fearlessness and acrobatic action moves. If anything, Rama is even steelier in The Raid 2, his separation from his family and the sadness over the loss of his brother admittedly feeble attempts to humanize this flinty lone-wolf hero. Interestingly, this opening-up of the Raid universe doesn’t mean that Evans significantly expands Rama’s backstory or explores his personality. (This is especially important since, at two-and-a-half hours, The Raid 2 is about 50 minutes longer than The Raid.)
The Raid 2 doesn’t have as slick or meaty a hook as the original, but that hardly matters when Evans has (consciously or not) addressed the chief criticism levelled against the original movie, finding a way to produce some memorable characters and meaningful stakes so that the drama isn’t entirely dependent on a videogame-like escalation of imposing foes that Rama must defeat.
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The first film, also written and directed by Evans, went a long way on the strength of its hand-to-hand fight choreography, resulting in a giddily hyper-violent movie in which one man, Rama, squared off against an army, breaking bones and slitting throats in incredibly colourful ways. Rama proves a valuable ally to Bangun, but the older man’s empire is threatened by Uco’s impatience to assume power, provoking him to join forces with an ambitious (and ruthless) up-and-coming rival, Bejo (Alex Abbad).
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After two years in prison and earning the boss’s trust, Rama is set free thanks to Bangun’s connections and invited to join his criminal underworld. He must go undercover in a high-security prison and befriend Uco (Arifin Putra), the hot-headed son of a feared crime boss named Bangun (Tio Pakusadewo). Taking place right after the original, The Raid 2 finds beleaguered rookie cop Rama (Iko Uwais) barely having time to recover from the events of the first film, where he took down a whole apartment complex of bad guys, before he’s given his next assignment. But strong reviews will be catnip to genre aficionados, and glowing word of mouth about the numerous exemplary action scenes all but guarantees that The Raid 2 will be a cult hit like The Raid was. Fans of the first instalment, The Raid: Redemption (as it was titled in the US), may be slightly disappointed that the sequel doesn’t bring back the original’s cunning Die Hard-like structure. Making its debut at the Sundance Film Festival, The Raid 2 is set to be released by Sony Pictures Classics in the US at the end of March. This new movie is just as brutal and bloody as the first, the shock of the pummelling violence eliciting a mixture of gasps and laughs because of Evans’ over-the-top audacity. The martial-arts set pieces remain extraordinary, but writer-director Gareth Evans has dreamed up a story to go along with them that, while hardly ingenious, puts enough muscle on the bone so that this exhilarating follow-up film is gripping even when the fists aren’t flying. That rare sequel that expands the scope of its predecessor to produce something grander, richer and far more rewarding, The Raid 2 elevates the franchise from a very enjoyable close-quarters action extravaganza into a full-blown crime epic.
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