The Raid 2: Berandal
Director: Gareth Evans
Writer: Gareth Evans
Sequel to: The Raid
Cast: Iko Uwais, Arifin Putra, Yayan Ruhian, Julie Estelle, Donny Alamsyah, Oka Antara, Tio Pakusodewo, Alex Abbad, Very Tri Yulisman
Part of: /slash Filmfestival

Plot:
After what happened in the first film, Rama (Iko Uwais) finds himself with a small Internal Affairs task force that operates with rather extreme measures. They want him to infiltrate a crime syndicate and expose the police corruption within. After Rama finds out that his brother Andi (Donny Alamsyah) was executed, he accepts the proposal and takes up the fight, quite literally.

The Raid 2 has the distinct disadvantage over the first film that I had expectations this time. But it did manage to fulfill them for the most part and I really enjoyed it.

I really loved the first Raid film, also because of the creative way it worked around the budgetary restraints with its setting. In this film they don’t really have that problem anymore, at least not that much. So they get to be creative on a grand scale and they do it very well. The different settings are pretty cool, but especially the camera work was awesome and is one of the main reasons that this film has the best car chase scene I’ve ever seen. (The other main reason is that I usually find car chases pretty boring and in this one we don’t only get to see cars but fighting in/on/around cars.)

Generally the fight scenes were fantastic again. Well-choreographed and ultra-brutal.  Sometimes they lacked a bit of realism though. Since they were so well-executed, it strained credulity a little that Rama would get up again and again. But that probably comes with the territory.

 

The cast was really good again. Iko Uwais is pretty much made for his role as is Yayan Ruhian. Arifin Putra was perfectly cast as well. And despite them being very gimmicky, I very much liked “Hammer Girl” (Julie Estelle) and “Baseball Bat Boy” (Very Tri Yulisman).

The plot was a little confusing at times (maybe also because I was tired and not always 100% concentrated) and the film generally ran just a tad too long. But neither of those things were so big that they took away from my enjoyment.

Summarizing: A more than decent follow-up.