Only a short time after the first raid, Rama goes undercover with the thugs of Jakarta and plans to bring down the syndicate and uncover the corruption within his police force.
The Cast:
- Rama is back kicking ass and generally being a badass superman
- Mob boss' son. Dude was just too handsome to think straight. This caused a lot of drama
- Bejo - Upstart mobster. Big plans include mob son
- Mob boss Thai. Calm and collected
- Mob boss Japan. Also calm and collected
- Hammer girl because anyone that can do what she does with a hammer gets my undying affection
The Situation:
Directly after the Events of The Raid, Rama is recruited by a team of shadowy police agents whose main goal is to discover and eliminate corrupt cops. They ask him to go undercover at a prison and befriend the son of a powerful mob boss in order to help them out.
Not too long after, shit gets unbelievably real.
Oh, and there's a Claw Hammer fight. Old Boy's hammer scene was good, but Berandal's hammer scene(s) took that one out to the back and shot it.
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The Raid 2 is unquestionably one of the hardest movies I've
ever had to review. If you go back and read my review for the first,
you will see that I offer nothing but gushing praise:
The best part?: They get that shit [the plot] out of the way within 10 minutes. There's nothing but action after that point and this has to have been one of the best pure guy films I have ever seen. I can overlook the so-so ending, because the start to finish action easily overshadows it.
While
Berandal is everything Redemption was (and then some), I just feel like
there's something off. Thing is I can't quite explain what it is, so I
end up sounding like some lunatic who can't decide whether he's team
Raid or not. I'm Team Raid all the way, I just think it was the running time. 2 1/2 hrs of Ass Kicking
Violence is wild, but to be fair, the time flies. Maybe it was the one
man superman narrative that they gave Rama? In the first film he had a
team, in this one he's wrecking shop solo. I've been saying to anyone
who will listen that Berandal will take the series away from its roots,
and it did to an extent, but the action really was fast and furious. Idk
man. Something is off and something is bothering me about it, but I
really have no idea what it is. Since watching it though, I have realized that comparing it to the first will not get me anywhere and I've learned that technically,
Berendal was supposed to be the first film, but they didn't have the
funding and Redemption was made as a way to raise funds. Looking at it like
that I can't hate it. I'm on the fence of whether to watch it again
though and promote it as much as the first. I think that's what's
bugging me.
Violence? Ultra. There's a bad guy who is a Claw Hammer expert
Explosions? Pffft of Hyper Violence. Claw Hammer dude. Claw Hammer.
Nudity? Actually, Yeah. That happened.
