Gareth Evans followup to his 2012 hit The Raid: Redemption is 150 minutes of blood, death, and all around carnage, a cinematic shotgun blast to the senses that comes as close to truly hurting to watch as any film ever has or likely ever will get. Compare that to its predecessor, The Raid: Redemption, which ran for just over an hour and a half, the relatively brief length perfectly complementing the slick efficiency of its action sequences. At two and half hours, The Raid is obviously aiming for bigger things. If The Raid: Redemption was a humble shoot-em-up/brawler, then The Raid 2 is a full on crime epic, in the vein of Heat or The Departed. The big difference between The Raid 2 and Heat and The Departed, however, is that the latter two films actually used their inordinately long runtimes to thoughtfully examine the nature of the modern criminal; their material justified their lengths. The Raid 2, on the other hand, is more of an action film in the guise of a crime epic; it wants the aesthetic satisfactions that come with such a grand narrative sweep, but doesnt want to actually take the time to really be about anything. Thats a problem, because at two and a half hours, theres only so much stylized action one can ingest before the mind begins aching for something a little meatier and more fulfilling. Credit goes to Evans for trying to do something unexpected with his sequel, but next time, it might do him well to actually learn the material, rather than just copy off of his partner.
