A Welshman directing two back-to-back Indonesian action classics is about as unexpected as it gets, but virtually every genre junkie who has an opinion worth respecting will be in firm agreement that The Raid and its bone-crunching sequel rank as two of the finest ass-kicking spectaculars to emerge from anywhere in the world since the dawn of the 21st Century.
Whereas the first installment was a lean, mean, nasty piece of work set almost entirely within a single building, the second installment ups the ante in every conceivable way. Now a sprawling, citywide conspiracy thriller punctuated with bursts of majestically balletic violence, Iko Uwais’ Rama is a fresh-faced rookie no longer, but a hardened veteran – even though the story picks up immediately afterwards.
With his family at risk, the intrepid police officer goes undercover and imprisoned to befriend the son of a local crime lord, putting his life on the line once again in order to tear down an empire from within. To be honest, we’d have been sold on The Raid 2 on the back of characters named Hammer Girl and Baseball Bat Man alone, but Evans offers so much more.
It might be a touch on the lengthy side at 150 minutes, but it’s every bit as good as its predecessor, largely due to the fact it’s not interested in replicating the formula. Instead, it’s a bigger and gnarlier beast, one that’s leaving Netflix subscribers with their jaws on the floor.
As per FlixPatrol, The Raid 2 has been bludgeoning the streaming service’s viewership charts since returning to the platform with a vengeance, and the only bad thing we can really say about it is that Evans has effectively confirmed there isn’t going to be a threequel.
