Four stars. Rated R, for strong, bloody violence, gore, profanity and occasional nudity
By Derrick Bang
With 2011’s The Raid, writer/director Gareth Evans was just flexing his
muscles.
 |
| Anticipation is everything: Our hero, Rama (Iko Uwais, left) endures considerable punishment before his climactic confrontation with an opponent known only as The Assassin (Cecep Arif Rahman), but the wait is justified. Director Gareth Evans unleashes a battle royale that must be seen to be believed. |
Having now released a sequel,
Evans’ master plan has become clear: He’s going for an underworld crime epic
that’s the martial arts equivalent of Sergio Leone’s 1984 masterpiece, Once Upon a Time in America.
Evans is nothing if not
ambitious, and he delivers. The Raid 2
is a bravura display of action mayhem, delivered with superbly choreographed
panache and layered with enough simmering sub-plots to keep this narrative
percolating not only through this sequel’s 150 minutes, but well into the
already planned next installment.
Evans has the additional benefit
of the ideal acting collaborator in Iko Uwais, who wears his tortured nobility
like a shield. Uwais’ Rama is the superlative hero: Jakarta’s last and best
honest cop, whose trial by repeated fire pushes him to horrific extremes not
merely to save his life, but — far more importantly — also his soul.
We’re dealing here with crime
fiction’s ultimate moral imperative: Is it possible for a good man to remain
pure, while doing the dirty work required to combat evil?
Tormented angst is well and good;
it’s always nice to identify with our protagonist. But Evans also knows how to
please the martial arts fans who’ve hungered for an audacious, densely layered
follow-up to Quentin Tarantino’s two-part Kill
Bill epic. Rest assured, The Raid 2
satisfies that itch, and then some.
This new film’s narrative kicks
off seconds after the events in the previous film, which left Rama’s rookie cop
the lone survivor of a special-forces assault on a 15-story slum building laden
with thugs taking orders from their brutal boss on the top floor.
Unfortunately, bad as that guy
was, he was merely a mid-sized predator in a much larger food chain. If Rama is
hailed as a hero, he and his family will be executed as a warning to other
potentially honest cops with virtuous notions. Instead, Rama’s boss —
clandestinely doing his best to root out departmental corruption — concocts a
dangerous plan that begins with the very public announcement that the
aforementioned raid left no survivors.
Rama is given a new identity as a
low-level thug named Yuda, who establishes his rep by beating up a local
politician’s son and getting tossed into prison. Once incarcerated, our hero
must figure out a way to cozy up to Uco (Arifin Putra), son of Bangun (Tio
Pakusodewo), one of the two Jakarta criminal kingpins who’ve ruled the city via
a mutual truce that has lasted for years.
The other half is held by the
Japanese yakuza, led by Goto (Kenichi Endô) and his son, Keiichi (Ryûhei
Matsuda). As it turns out, both sons are irritated by this status quo, and
eager to advance their respective causes — and show their worthiness to their
respective fathers — by increasing clan territory.
Enter an interloper, Bejo (Alex
Abbad), slowly advancing through Indonesia’s bloody underworld, who cheerfully plays
both sides against the other, to his own gain. During a brief prologue, we also
watch Bejo kill Rama’s brother, Andi (Donny Alamsyah), which ups the ante
rather grimly.
But taking down the two clans, if
that’s even possible, isn’t the ultimate goal; Rama has been ordered to wade
through this hierarchy of competing forces until he can identify — and entrap —
the corrupt politicians and upper-echelon police officers who tolerate and even
participate in this festering cesspool of fraud and sleaze.
Got all that?
Things get murky once folks start
double-crossing each other, but the constant peril of Rama’s double life never
wavers. Sadly, his moral conviction also becomes murky, as the need to maintain
his cover requires an escalating degree of vicious mayhem.
Martial arts films historically
rely on a cliché that often seems silly: the fact that baddies generally attack
our hero one at a time — allowing the camera to focus on ferocious mano-a-mano combat — rather than more
sensibly overwhelming him en masse.
Granted, there’s something to be said for the choreographed adrenalin rush that
results from watching a lone warrior sequentially picking off his opponents in
wide open spaces, and Evans certainly indulges in such scenes.
But he also finds inventive ways
to prevent a group assault from all
sides, thus forcing head-on confrontations that allow no more than one or two
opponents at a time. The first such skirmish occurs shortly after Rama lands in
prison, as he is forced to prove his toughness. He waits in a locked bathroom
stall, Evans teasing us with increasingly tight close-ups of the flimsy slip-bolt,
as a massing mob on the other side of that door grows louder and more frenzied.
We’re literally breathless before
anything even happens, anticipation building as the lock shakes, rattles and
slowly gives way. Then, finally, the
door bursts inward, but the belligerent thugs have no choice but to rush inside
individually.
Brilliant set-up, awesome
staging.
Evans also edits his films, and
he knows precisely how to squeeze every ounce of fury from his imaginatively conceived
action sequences.
Tight quarters play a similar
role in another fight scene, later in the film, which takes place on a crowded
bus ... but I’m not about to reveal anything about that mind-blowing fracas.
Arresting as they are, these
sequences are mere warm-ups; Evans wisely parcels out his action scenes,
impressively increasing the tension and mayhem as the story proceeds. In other
words, he doesn’t front-load the action in the manner of less talented
directors, who leave themselves with nothing for the second and third acts. As
was the case in Tarantino’s Kill Bill
entries, Evans finds ever-more-daring settings and “styles” for his various
combat scenes.
One amazing melee takes place in
the rain-muddied prison courtyard, involving scores of thugs making a move on
both Rama (Yuda) and Uco: an already frenzied battle that becomes even crazier
as the expanding hoards of prisoners also turn their attention to the guards
who attempt to break up the fight.
At the other end of the scale, a
nightclub sequence involving Bangun’s favorite assassin, Prakoso (Yayan
Ruhian), displays more of the balletic grace and moody lighting generally associated with a Jackie Chan
film, with a nod toward, yes, Uma Thurman’s restaurant battle against the Crazy
88.
Speaking of Chan, Uwais’ fighting
style often involves a similar mastery of “found” objects as weapons: broom
handles, wine bottles, chairs or anything else at hand. And while Evans never
ventures into Chan’s purely comedic territory —events here are too grim for
that — he’s not above mordant touches of dark humor.
After all, we can’t help
chuckling when introduced to the almost entirely silent characters of “Hammer
Girl” (Julie Estelle) and her older brother, “Baseball Bat Man” (Very Tri
Yulisman), both of whom earn their nicknames for obvious reasons. But we
certainly don’t laugh long, once they begin their ruthless work.
Be advised, by the way: This film
is aggressively, copiously, gleefully violent and vicious, and definitely not
for the faint of heart. The level of gore increases as the story proceeds,
reflecting Rama’s descent into spiritual darkness; the final half hour is,
well, a sight to behold.
As is Rama’s climactic fight with
a character known only as The Assassin (Cecep Arif Rahman), an amazing sequence
that opens as an echo of Bruce Lee’s final battle in Enter the Dragon, but continues — seemingly forever! — to become
the most furious mixed martial arts fight ever caught on camera. It’s a
cinematic game-changer.
And heck, I haven’t even
mentioned the wow factor of Hong Kong stunt coordinator Bruce Law’s
exhilarating daytime car chase/fight scene — inside one of the vehicles — through Jakarta’s busy streets.
Uwais is every inch the seasoned
warrior, persuasively delivering and enduring punishment. Rama never escapes
unscathed from a skirmish, and we see the emotional toll on Uwais’ face, as his
character gets ever more bruised and battered. Frustration mounts, as does
desperation; the most agonizing scene comes when Rama unwisely calls his wife
and asks her to hold up the phone so he can listen to their young son laugh in
another room: a painful reminder of the domestic bliss he can’t share.
Putra is perfect as the unwisely
impulsive Uco: outwardly immaculate and all smiles, but far too quick with his
impatient temper. Pakusodewo’s Bangun, in deliberate contrast, is calm and
commanding: a veteran crime lord who understands that strength comes from
controlled fury and the threat of
reprisal, rather than rash behavior.
Abbad is memorably slimy as the
scheming Bejo; Oka Antara has an intriguing role as Eka, Bangun’s trusted
lieutenant, who possesses hidden depths of his own.
Ruhian, Estelle and Yulisman make
the most of their stony silence and ’tude.
Evans, art designer Tomy Dwi
Setyanto and cinematographers Matt Flannery and Dimas Imam Subhono maximize the
visual pizzazz of numerous eye-catching locations, from commercial malls and
hotels, to snow-covered alleyways, high-ceilinged abandoned buildings, and an
entire rubble-strewn apartment block that seems left over from an actual war.
In lesser hands, a 150-minute
movie would be self-indulgent, verging on tedious. But Evans never loses
control of his narrative or momentum, whether establishing the first-act
groundwork or building to the spectacular mayhem of the extended third act.
This is a level of intensity we rarely find in American cinema, and I’m left with
only one question:
How can Evans possibly top
himself again, with the final installment in this trilogy?
No comments:
Post a Comment