Serbuan Maut 2
Directed by:
Gareth EvansScreenplay:
Gareth EvansCast:
Iko Uwais, Arifin Putra, Tio Pakusadewo, Oka Antara, Alex Abbad, Cecep Arif Rahman, Julie Estelle, Very Tri Yulisman, Ryūhei Matsuda, Ken'ichi Endō, 北村一輝 (more)VOD (3)
Plots(1)
After fighting his way out of a building filled with gangsters and madmen, rookie Jakarta cop Rama thought he could resume a normal life. He couldn't have been more wrong. His triumph attracted the attention of the criminal underworld, and with his family at risk, Rama has only one choice - to join the gang undercover and begin a new odyssey of violence. (Entertainment One)
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Reviews (14)
(49th KVIFF) The atmosphere in the big theatre was unique, but the sequel of The Raid was a big disappointment for me, mainly because it’s a totally different genre than the first one, which was basically a horror survival. Here Evans tries to tell some kind of intricate Mafia drama with a complex story, but he is not quite successful at it: the motivations are lost, the plan as a whole is unclear and, mostly, it’s terribly boring overall. The moment they start kicking the living shit out of each other, though, it’s nice to watch. The choreography of the fights is amazing, but they don’t make much sense from a narrative standpoint. The last hour, when the characters finally have said everything they wanted to say, it’s fun, but the bad aftertaste of the gruelling ninety minutes that preceded it is impossible to forget. Evans should come back down to earth.
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It tries to be more epic, visually polished, and technically lavish with better action scenes than the first film. The action is indeed slightly better, but I still have a feeling that the classic arcade mode was more attractive for this subgenre. The pace is ideal and very enjoyable, and each step up meant better and better villains until the finale. Plus, there’s no need to deal with these or those characters and their motivations. Here, there is a plethora of everything, although the essence is still the same, so in the same trivial story, there is only more chaos and confusion, which spoils the indescribably perfect action scenes. It has a bit of Michael Mann's neon lights, a bit of Michael Bay's cinematography and sound editing, and a touch of Ridley Scott's visual poetry, and Quentin Tarantino (especially the silent scenes with snow, hammers, etc.) – thumbs up for all of this, but I would only watch it again for the action.
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The success of the first The Raid went to Evans’s head and brought his boundless ambitions to light. These ambitions are not limited to revolutionary depictions of action, but unfortunately also include storytelling. The director has obviously watched Leone and Coppola, so instead of the striking video-game structure of the first instalment, this time he delivers a showy mafia saga in which a third of the runtime is taken up by goons and the rest of the film is importantly narrated and plotted by the bosses. The film tries to placate viewers even in the plot-development passages through emphasis on formalistic stylishness and coolness, but despite the nice images, it’s like bad porn, where the viewer merely waits for the men to shut up so they can get to the action. Though on paper these passages are supposed to add a dramatic element to the action, in practice that element is limited to kitschy pathos in the best case and, in the worst case, a ridiculously strained appendage stretching the runtime. One can now wait with interest as to whether Evans will take a different route in terms of the genre and stylistic direction of the planned third instalment, which would give the whole trilogy an element of experimentation and, mainly, retrospectively justify the choice of the style used in the second instalment. The deviations from the liveliness of the first film seems rather like the unfortunate influence of the growing co-producer, XYZ Films, whose trademark has become superficial fan-service pomposity and a calculated attempt at otherness, resulting in detachment and empty gestures. Therefore, in The Raid 2 we have comic-bookishly stylised characters with special attacks and costumes (Hammer Girl, Baseball Bat Man, Prakoso) who gush pathos and coolness from every pore, but involving them in the effort to make a tense mafia saga only exposes the whole project as a juvenile genre fantasy targeted at hipster movie fans who hide their consumerism and proneness to being manipulated behind their ostentatious rejection of the mainstream. But these are all just the aforementioned appendages or perhaps even concessions made in exchange for the freedom of implementation for the film’s main attraction. Here, a revolutionary mix of contact choreography, computer-generated effects and brilliant formalistic arrangement combines contemporary Western and Eastern action-movie trends into a thrilling whole, much like Matrix did in its day. With the bigger budget brought about by the success of the first instalment, Evans could also afford to take the action a step beyond the relatively cheap fight scenes. Whereas in the first instalment the choreography was worked out by Evans together with the lead actors, Iko Uwais and Yayan Ruhian, this time the crew included professionals from abroad, led by Hong Kong-based automotive action expert Bruce Law and fight choreographer Larnell Stovall (Undisputed III, Universal Soldier - Day of Reckoning). ___ Update after the second viewing in 2020: Though all of my criticisms still apply, nothing better has yet been made in the action genre in terms of choreography, even though the John Wick franchise gives The Raid 2 a respectable run for its money. But with its combination of physically gifted performers who know how to give and take punches, a director with a feel for action scenes and a refined style and staging ambitions, The Raid 2 has simply achieved the best balance so far.
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Great fights were given a well-written story which, despite its immense length, isn’t boring for a minute. Also Iko Uwais isn’t the ultimate crusher and doesn’t win every fight. Crowd fights alternate with shootouts and one-on-one fist fights. Evans has hammers, machetes, aluminum baseball bats, broom handles up his sleeve and pulls them out with the best action - and I mean at least one level better than in part one. Harder and heavier. If it’s at all possible.
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The Raid 2 is for contact action movies what Heat is for he crime movies, what The Dark Knight is for comic book movies, what Once Upon a Time in the West is for westerns and what The Shining is for horror movies. Basically, a genre movie that breaks down the boundaries of this “ignoble" movie genre. It is the plot that’s the most surprising about part two. Yes, really, the plot, something that last time didn’t even figure as essential stuffing, simply because it chose to be nonexistent. This time we have a plot good enough to stand alone even without all that neat action stuff. This time it is a broad uncompromising dirty Hong Kong-style gangster movie that reminds you of Internal Affairs etc. and where the motivations and emotions make sense. In any case, most viewers will just be watching it for the action scenes anyway. And the pleasing thing about it is that even though the choreography was extremely ambitious (and very gory) offering incredible crowd scenes as well as extreme “face to face" fight scenes, it really hurts (the characters and the viewer; especially the final fight scene in the spotlessly white kitchen) and it’s made without any fancy stuff; no tough-guy lines or hyperbole, no shaking camera hand in hand with machinegun editing to cover imperfections and punches that missed, no wires and obvious CGI, but everything nice and clear using long (really long) takes. So, while the rather monotonous part one contained quite a few scenes that were worth watching more than once, here the whole two-and-a-half hour movie is worth your while to watch more than once. And with a movie where everybody’s hitting everybody else all the time, that is the best possible recommendation.
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