The Raid 2 is a throwback to an era when a movie could be built around the incredible physical skills of its performers.
Julie Estelle in The Raid 2.
Sony Pictures Classics
It was easy to miss The Raid 2 when it opened in theaters stateside a few months ago, considering the sequel to a 2012 action movie from Indonesia — a country that hasn't otherwise made much headway exporting its cinema into the U.S. — is the work of Gareth Evans, an up-and-coming Welsh director who's made Jakarta his home.
The movie's star, Iko Uwais, actually worked as a driver for a telecom company before Evans put him on screen, which is all the more interesting because The Raid 2 isn't just one of the best, most bruising action flicks of the year, it's a throwback to an era when a movie could be built around the incredible physical skills of its performers. The hero of The Amazing Spider-Man 2, for example, is able to swing with impossible limberness between the pylons of a power station in his big fight because he's computer generated — a triumph of technology, not athleticism. But The Raid 2's main special effects are Uwais, who practices the traditional Indonesian martial art of pencak silat. He and his fellow flesh-and-blood co-stars battle in prison courtyards and luxe nightclubs, crashing through windows and having wild shootouts while speeding down a road in colliding cars.
Here's why the movie, which comes out on DVD and Blu-ray today, is a reminder of the pleasures of old-school action.
1. The action fills the frame.
Sony Pictures Classics
Movies these days tend to favor shorter shots and quicker cuts that bombard the viewer with visual information, but things like fighting or dancing look much more impressive when they're given the full range of movement and audiences can see a stunt hasn't just been pieced together in an editing room. Evans and his cinematographers. Matt Flannery and Dimas Imam Subhono, shoot the action sequences in longer, fluid takes, so you can see where people on screen are in relation to one another — all the better to appreciate how deftly Uwais' character Rama snaps some guy's tibia.
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