The Raid 2: Berandal

To me there is one sure way to tell how good a movie is, its ability to stay with me. I think about it and get excited as I tell other people about what I saw. That doesn’t happen often, when you see as many movies as I do everything sometimes blurs together and I get that feeling maybe a handful of times though out the year. “The Raid 2: Berandal” gave me that feeling and I cannot wait to see it again.

           “The Raid 2” is the sequel to the highly enjoyable “The Raid: Redemption”, which is already being Americanized in a remake, but that is another story. We pick up two hours after the first film ended, and Rama (Iko Uwais) is picked to go uncover to help end the police corruption that is brought to light in the first film. Everyone must believe Rama is who he says he is, so he commits a real crime and is sent to prison, so that he can get in with a certain crowd. What follows is not so much a story, but one action scene after another that will take your breath away. With heavy doses of fight scenes that play more like choreographed dance numbers than actual fights (but with lots of blood) all you can do is marvel at them. Everything builds up to the end fight scene that reminds you of a video game both in action and story, but in this case it is all cinematic intense fun.

          This movie will appeal to anyone who likes action movies. If it was up to me, writer/director Gareth Evans can make as many sequels to this series as he wants, especially if they maintain this kind of quality. No CGI, only real people doing real stunts that will keep your eyes glued to the screen. There seems to be such a contrast of opinions on what action fans want to see when it comes to the people who make these movies. Some think you need bigger explosions and bigger guns, but in the case of “The Raid 2” sometimes all you need is a guy with a bat or a girl with a hammer to make a film worth seeing more than once. My only complaint is the running time, at two hours and twenty minutes, you sometimes feel the length, but it does pay off at the end.  I can go on some more about all the reasons you should see this film, but I won’t instead I will just end with the best advice I can give, just see this movie, you will thank me later.

 

Brian Taylor