

#REVIEW FILM THE RAID 2 BERANDAL MOVIE#
If all of that isn’t draining enough the movie then provides us with its final showdown, a clash in a kitchen between Rama and one of the gang’s lead assassins that is simply put, the greatest fight sequence I’ve ever seen on the big screen (I did warn you about the superlatives).

These two also take centre stage for a sequence in the movie that was reminiscent of The Godfather, an efficient handling of business where mercy is the last item on the menu. This is only the first of the movies incredible sequences- taking on the ‘you can’t top that’ approach of the first movie we are treated to an exciting showdown in a night club, the finest car chase since The French Connection and a showdown with two villains that have become known simply as Baseball Bat Man and Knife girl. Kicks and punches fly in dramatic fashion, the sequence composed with such elegance that it transforms violence into a performance a ballet where a crushed skull is the final act. Skulls are cracked, bones are broken and throats are slit- Evans’, along with Uwais and Yayan Ruhain who choreographed the fight sequences create a sequence that is unrivalled anywhere else in cinema right now. The sequence takes place outside in a wet muddy prison yard. The prison provides us with the movies first jaw dropping sequence- a fight scene amongst prisoners with a few prison guards chucked in for good measure. But you don’t need boring too much with the plot details. Through doing this his ultimate goal is to bring down corruption in the city by unearthing the identities of corrupt officials. The Raid 2 moves Rama out of the tower block and into the city- he is tasked with going undercover in a prison to befriend the son of one of Jakarta’s leading mob bosses. So when The Raid 2 was announced the logical assumption from many people was ‘well surely he can’t top the first one.’ By all means go into the movie with that assumption, by doing so the movie may manage to blow you away even more. The great thing about The Raid was a fight scene would come along and blow you away, and you’d sit thinking, well you can’t top that- but then it would and it would continue doing so for 100 breathtaking minutes of madness. He transformed brutality into an art form as his lead character Rama, played by Iko Uwais expertly dispatched his victims with the martial art Pencak Silat. The Indonesian funded martial arts/action movie about a group of cops in Jakarta who are given the task of taking down a gang leader who sits on the highest level of a 30 story block of flats became a word of mouth hit and reminded us all just how beautiful and brilliant bloodshed and fighting could actually be. When Gareth Evans directed The Raid a few years ago it would have been difficult for him to imagine the impact it was going to have. 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.The use of superlatives is something I try my utmost to avoid when I sit down to review a film they should be saved for the crème of the crop, the movies that really blow you away and redefine your expectations- movies like The Raid 2. 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 his triumph over the small fry has attracted the attention of the predators farther up the food chain. 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. 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.
