Okay, I'm 50 films off having reviewed 4,000, so I've seen a fair few flicks in my time. Many of them have been good, some bad, a lot of them middling. But very few of them blow me away, and the ones that do so tend to be the really intense thrillers that are packed with suspense and absolutely great action scenes. THE RAID was a great movie which I really enjoyed, and I heard the hype about the sequel but was afraid to believe it. I needn't have been; THE RAID 2 is an absolutely brilliant movie and one of the best films I've ever seen.
This sequel doesn't slavishly copy the original, which is a good thing. Instead, it's a sprawling gangster movie, an Indonesian variant of the ones popular in Hong Kong and South Korea, enlivened with some incredibly violent and extremely well choreographed action sequences which usually take the "one vs. many" formula to the extreme. This stuff is great in itself, enlivened with larger than life characters and more depth than you'd expect from a typical thriller.
Stuff continues in this vein up until the last forty five minutes, at which point you realise that everything preceding this point was just the build up to the denouement, which is an action spectacular unlike anything ever put on film. There's a stupendous car chase, a great three-way between top fighters, and the final kitchen one on one, which I think might well be the best fight ever put on film (and I've seen most of the Bruce Lee/Donnie Yen/Jackie Chan/Tony Jaa fights). Everything is perfect: the choreography, the music, the violence. Iko Uwais and Gareth Evans both go from strength to strength and everything just gels together perfectly. Go buy this now, you won't be disappointed!
Plot summary
He thought it was over. After fighting his way out of a building filled with gangsters and madmen - a fight that left the bodies of police and gangsters alike piled in the halls - rookie Jakarta cop Rama thought it was done and he could resume a normal life. He couldn't have been more wrong. Formidable though they may have been, Rama's opponents in that fateful building were nothing more than small fish swimming in a pond much larger than he ever dreamed possible. And his triumph over the small fry has attracted the attention of the predators farther up the food chain. His family at risk, Rama has only one choice to protect his infant son and wife: He must go undercover to enter the criminal underworld himself and climb through the hierarchy of competing forces until it leads him to the corrupt politicians and police pulling the strings at the top of the heap. And so Rama begins a new odyssey of violence, a journey that will force him to set aside his own life and history and take on a new identity as the violent offender "Yuda." In prison he must gain the confidence of Uco - the son of a prominent gang kingpin - to join the gang himself, laying his own life on the line in a desperate all-or-nothing gambit to bring the whole rotten enterprise to an end.
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Instant classic and one of the best films I've ever seen
even better than the first
After The Raid, Rama (Iko Uwais) is pushed to work for Bunawar and his small group of cops to root out corruption in the police. He goes undercover into prison as Yuda. Inside the prison, he saves the life of Uco (Arifin Putra),the volatile violent son of gangster Bangun (Tio Pakusodewo). Two years later, he's released as the right hand man of Uco. Uco is itching to go to war with rival Japanese gang Goto except his father Bangun won't allow it. Bejo (Alex Abbad) comes to Uco with a proposal to force a gang war.
The original was an eye-opening to Indonesian action movies. It wasn't just fights and stunts. Everything was well put together. It was better than most movies from anywhere in the world. This one takes another step further. The action scenes are even better in this one. However, the writing is vastly improved. The acting goes from amateurish stuntman acting to full-on Shakespearian acting. Arifin Putra is given a juicy part and he squeezes every drip out of it. He is able to add more to the movie than just the stoic acting from Iko Uwais. This is even better than the first movie.
Funny and Entertaining Martial Arts Action Movie
In Jakarta, Indonesia, the SWAT officer Rama (Iko Uwais) meets with police officer Bunawar (Cok Simbara) that invites him to join a secret anti-corruption team. The reluctant Rama accepts to join the team to protect his family and learns that Bunawar wants to expose the corrupt chief of police Reza (Roy Marten) that is dealing with the mobster lords Bangun (Tio Pakusodewo) and Goto (Kenichi Endo),but needs evidences. Bunawar asks Rama to hit the son of a politician to be imprisoned and get close to Bangun's son Uco (Arifin Putra) in the prison. Rama goes undercover using the name Yuda and saves the life of Uco in a mob in the prison befriending him. Two years later, when Yuda is released, he is hired by Bangun to work in their organization with his right arm Eka (Oka Antara) and Uco. But the ambitious Uco is not satisfied with the behavior of his father towards Goto's family and he secretly associates to the gang lord Bejo (Alex Abbad) to begin a war between the families. But Bangun does not want a war against the Japanese mobster and Uco kills his own father. Yuda saves Eka and now he has to fight for his own life.
"The Raid 2: Berandal" is a funny and entertaining martial arts action movie. The non-stop action associated to the choreography is amazing with spectacular fights. But it is weird to see body-guards not having guns and falling like sparring in fights against experts. My vote is seven.
Title (Brazil): "Operação Invasão 2" (Operation Invasion 2")