If you have the stomach for it, this is pretty good fun.

The Raid 2 is an ugly and brutalizing experience.

There are films built around the theme of violence and then there is violence for the sake of making a film — The Raid 2 happens to fall into the latter category.

If you enjoy savage, on-screen action that is unabashedly over-the-top and even sometimes borders on pastiche with all the gangster film tropes, don’t hesitate to go watch this.

Very few sequels come close to the original but suffice to say that director Gareth Evans has pulled it off, again. Raid 2 is the best action flick to hit the screens in ages and it is only fair to say that this Indonesian product beats all contemporary Hollywood action films hollow.

The Raid 2 was not a movie. It was a fine dining restaurant tended by a single waiter-cum-cook named Gareth Evans.

Like the 2011 sleeper hit, the sequel is combat-centric and overwhelms viewers with an unending series of mostly one-on-one bouts starting with the claustrophobic confines of a prison loo and corridor which reminded your reviewer of Spartan v/s Greek army fights. Later, there is slaughter in the snow and the mud-slime of the prison compound as hard rain falls followed by butchery in a bar where an aged hit man battles an entire cohort.

Presented through an undercover policeman’s point of view, it is a convoluted crime saga designed in a Godfather-style father-son crime drama with a whole sub-set of assassin characters who have their own storylines and sequences.

The Raid 2 is a film for hardcore action-film buffs. It is unapologetic in its display of gore, brutality and battles. It also has a better plot than most films of the genre, making it a refreshing change from the usual norm. If you liked the prequel, this isn’t a film you can afford to miss!

More comfortable with action than words (the dubbed English version, done in India, is another source of unintentional mirth), he focuses his energies on delivering the daddy of all action spectacles. Would anybody else dare to come close to his achievements—or would anybody else bother? Once is quite enough.

Personally speaking, I’d have been more than happy to see even more action in the film, because that’s what made The Raid so much fun. Yet, The Raid 2offers enough adrenaline-pumping stuff to keep you hooked, and if you set your expectations right, the plot works as well. Evans has firmly established himself as a genre specialist, and The Raid 3 has already been announced, and will certainly be a film to watch out for.

Only viewers with zero appreciation for the genre will leave unimpressed; devotees should add approximately six stars to the rating above.