It was a rare example of an out-and-out action film that was genuinely terrifying.Įvans loses the fear and empathy that made The Raid and "Safe Haven", his short-film installment on last year's V/H/S 2 which is one of the best pieces of horror cinema from the last decade, so powerful beyond their visceral violence.
The intensity in the action was rooted in fear and desperation, the fact that if either party stopped fighting they would die. The bad guys just kept coming, and even the low level villains were just as scared as the out-of-their-league cops. But, even aside from the incredible choreography on display, Evans crafted martial arts and gun battles to feel like a zombie horror film. The first Raid had punishing brutality and outlandish gore as well. It's not action so much as pervasive bullying and it gets dull pretty quickly. But the majority are one-sided affairs where a vastly outmatched opponent, be they good guy or bad guy, is pummeled mercilessly or murdered gruesomely. You've seen this all before, and the flat characters and dry dialogue offer little entertainment value. The first 100 minutes or so has its share of bruising and brutal fights or violent encounters. Once Rama gets out of prison The Raid 2 settles into gangster conventions, with Rama realizing that the son is a completely unhinged thug who nonetheless wants more respect and responsibility from his father. The (technically impressive) fights in this section are so arbitrary and over-the-top gory that it starts to resemble a humorless remake of Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky.
The first portion of the film is a prison tale, with Rama sent into the slammer to bond with the son of a major crime boss. We don't so much root for Rama as we pity him for being caught up in this futile pursuit. The story being told, about the hero from the first film (Iko Uwais) going undercover to expose dirty cops among organized crime families, offers no twists on the formula and keeps our lead mostly passive until the end of the picture. There is a certain viciousness to this crime drama, something akin to a young man using blood and swear words for the first time. The picture starts with a point blank execution of a man as he cries and begs for mercy, and that really sets the tone for what follows. But in the service of a boilerplate organized crime drama, too much of the action is basically pointlessly cruel violence rather than artistic combat. If it were a shorter and punchier film, it would be easier to tell audiences to ignore the plot and character work and just concentrate on the mayhem. It also takes 2.5 hours to tell said generic narrative. Gareth Evans's The Raid 2: Berandal offers some astonishing and breathtaking action sequences in service of a painfully generic story and dull characters.