The Raid 2 (2014)
When Gareth Evans and Iko Uwais unleashed The Raid on the world in 2011, the response was somewhere between astonishment and mild disbelief. A Welsh director working in Indonesia with a relatively modest budget had produced one of the most viscerally efficient action films in years, a single-location siege movie that stripped everything back to its bare essentials and let the bodies do the talking. The film became an instant touchstone for action cinema enthusiasts globally, generating the kind of word-of-mouth that no marketing budget can manufacture. A sequel was, in hindsight, inevitable. Whether it was wise is a rather different question.
The Raid 2, released in 2014 and again written and directed by Evans, expands the canvas considerably. Where the first film was a pressure cooker confined to a single tower block, the follow-up reaches for something more ambitious, a sprawling crime saga that trades claustrophobic tension for a panoramic Jakarta underworld of competing gangs, corrupt police, and family dynasties tearing themselves apart. The production was backed by XYZ Films alongside Evans's own PT. Merantau Films, the same partnership that produced the original, and the budget, while not publicly confirmed at a specific figure, was clearly larger, reflected in longer shoot days, more elaborate set construction, and a runtime that sits at a hefty 150 minutes. Evans had spoken in interviews about wanting to make his version of a classic crime epic, something in the tradition of Korean revenge cinema and the longer-form gangster films he admired. The ambition, at least on paper, is genuinely impressive.
Iko Uwais returns as Rama, the SWAT officer who survived the events of the first film and finds himself drawn into an undercover operation that requires him to embed within one of Jakarta's most powerful criminal organisations. Uwais is a former practitioner of the Indonesian martial art pencak silat, and his physical performance remains extraordinary, precise, controlled, and utterly convincing in ways that digitally assisted action simply cannot replicate. Alongside him, Arifin Putra brings a brooding, occasionally unsettling energy to Uco, the volatile son of a crime boss, while Tio Pakusadewo provides a weathered gravitas as the patriarch himself. Oka Antara and Alex Abbad round out a cast that is, on the whole, polished but unremarkable in terms of dramatic range. The ensemble was capable of carrying the action, though whether they were given enough material to carry much else is, of course, a matter for the review. For fans of the broader Southeast Asian action scene, it is also worth looking at The Night Comes for Us, which features several of the same stunt performers and occupies a similar, blood-soaked territory. And if you are interested in how action films from outside the Hollywood system tend to fare when ambition outpaces resources, the blockbuster end of that spectrum offers its own instructive contrast.
The Raid 2 (2014), directed by Gareth Evans, is a film that knows exactly what it is, and for fans of hyper-kinetic, bone-crunching action, it delivers in spades. The fight choreography is undeniably spectacular: the kitchen brawl, the prison yard melee, and the now-legendary car chase are masterclasses in visceral, intricately staged combat.
Evans pushes the boundaries of what's possible with practical stunts and tight editing, creating sequences that feel less like filmed fights and more like choreographed nightmares. If you're watching purely for the action, this is peak genre craftsmanship.
But outside those set pieces, the film struggles. The plot (a convoluted underworld saga of corruption, betrayal, and familial loyalty) is thin to the point of irrelevance, serving mainly as connective tissue between bouts of violence. Characters are archetypes with names, not people with arcs, and the dialogue often feels like exposition delivered in a hurry. The pacing suffers as a result: long stretches of talky, basic drama drag between the adrenaline spikes, making the film feel longer than its 150-minute runtime. It's the Fast & Furious of action cinema: nobody watches it for the story, but the story still has to carry the weight of two and a half hours.
That's where the comparison to Jackie Chan becomes instructive. Chan's best films (Police Story, Drunken Master, Project A) balanced spectacular stunt work with genuine heart, humour, and character. You cared about Chan's underdog because you felt his pain, his joy, his determination. The Raid 2 has the physical brilliance but none of the emotional resonance. The action is cold, efficient, and technically dazzling, but it rarely makes you feel anything beyond awe at the choreography. It's spectacle without soul.
The Raid 2 is a decent, often exhilarating action film that will satisfy genre completists and stunt-work enthusiasts. But for viewers seeking narrative depth, character development, or emotional payoff, it's a hollow experience. Watch it for the fights, skip it for everything else, and don't expect to leave with anything more than a pulse and a sore neck.
The Raid 2 occupies an odd position in the action canon: genuinely revered in certain circles, quietly divisive in others, and almost always discussed in relation to its predecessor rather than on its own terms. That comparison is probably unavoidable, and possibly unfair, but it is also telling. When a film's most celebrated qualities are its fight sequences, and everything around them is treated as a necessary inconvenience, the question of what a sequel is actually trying to be becomes harder to answer. Evans would go on to direct Apostle in 2018, a period folk horror that demonstrated real range and a willingness to sit with atmosphere rather than velocity, which perhaps suggests that the ambitions buried inside The Raid 2 were always pulling in a direction the format could not quite accommodate. As an exercise in physical filmmaking, it is hard to fault. As a film, it is a rather longer evening than it needed to be. Some sequels give you more of what you loved. This one gives you more of everything, which is not quite the same thing.
Rating: ★★½ | Year: 2014 | Watched: 2026-06-04
Trailer
▶ Watch the official trailer for The Raid 2 (2014) on YouTube
Where to watch (UK)
Rent: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Sky Store
Buy: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Sky Store
Physical: Amazon UK · Zavvi
Affiliate disclosure: Movies With Macca may earn a small commission on purchases or subscriptions started via these links. It costs you nothing extra.
