In the centre of Jakarta's slums is a maximum-security, 30-storey safe house for some of the world most dangerous criminals. It had previously been considered a no-go zone to even the bravest of cops. But now, at pre-dawn, an elite SWAT team is sent in to raid it and execute infamous drug lord Tama Riyadi (Ray Sehatapy), who's pulling the strings in there. Our protagonist is Rama (Iko Uwais), a rookie special tactics officer with a young wife and a child coming. He's an honest, devoted and religious officer but one with no illusions about what they're facing. The operating begins well enough, but then once their cover is blown and Riyadi learns of their assault, he has all the building's exits sealed. Trapped on the sixth storey with no escape, the unit must now fight their way through Indonesia's very worst to live.
Three years after barely surviving everything the first movie literally threw at him, Rama now thinks he's won the war and can return to a normal, quiet life. Not even close. After his brother is executed as retribution for Tama's death, Rama learns he's now on the radar of predators even higher up the hierarchy than those he just eliminated. In order to now get the rest of his family out of danger, he must go undercover in the criminal underworld and expose the crooked police and politicians controlling them all. After then being imprisoned he must earn the trust of gang kingpin's son Uco (Arifin Putra) to become a gang member himself and risk his own life in order to really bring the whole filthy business to a close.
This ferocious cop saga from Welsh-born, Indonesian-based writer-director-editor Gareth Huw Evans for me has brought litres of fresh blood to contemporary action cinema, with both entries deservedly earning global acclaim. With The Raid Evans concocts a premise that works because it's somehow neither conventional nor unique and provides huge potential (which is met) for claustrophobic suspense, and his direction's rollicking pacing just never stops building, albeit without making it hard for us to tell what's happening. He also, with Uwais, gives us a hero who's all the more relatable because his vulnerability is never hidden. Then, with The Raid 2 Evans expands the scope to focus also on how power, crime and poverty trickle down like economics from the upper echelons of any society. The Raid 2 maybe rather overlong (and indeed it's inferior overall) at 148 minutes, but with the extended final fight scene, featuring all manner of random objects, Evans and Uwais still ram the entertainment factor very much home.
The Raid duo also arguably serve as a brutally (pun intended) honest snapshot of contemporary Indonesia, with its widespread organised crime and unequal wealth distribution (although most countries share those issues). But of course, their whole point is to be non-stop, hardcore action excitement, and both installments achieve that to a degree of which most Hollywood action flicks could only dream.
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