FILM REVIEW: THE RAID 2

A scene from The Raid 2. 

Spray cans of whoop ass

By John Esther

Three years after the 2011 film, The Raid: Redemption, writer-director Gareth Evans returns with the highly anticipated, vehemently violent sequel, The Raid 2. 

Essentially commencing where The Raid: Redemption finished, the sequel finds the protagonist, Rama (Iko Uwais) going undercover to infiltrate a crime syndicate and bring everybody down, especially the crooked cops at the top. 

As Rama falls deeper and deeper into his undercover role, he begins to lose his senses of what is right and wrong, incrementally becoming more punitive toward his aggressors. Of course, in a society where cops and government officials are as crooked as the gangsters, who can tell what is right and wrong? The only thing to know for sure is how to survive and fight another day.

As gratuitously violent as any insane person would want it to be, The Raid 2 makes the balletic violence in 300: Rise of an Empire and the ejaculatory explosions in Need for Speed look like bloody adolescent-minded masturbation (even more so than before). Here in The Raid 2, faces are bludgeoned, legs are snapped, heads are smashed, arms are amputated, etc., via baseball bats to the head, hammers to the throat, knives to the chest, etc. There is also a lot of death-by-furniture. Only the insecure need a gun to fight here in Jakarta, Indonesia. 

For a while the martial arts choreography make the violence somewhat entertaining, or thrilling at least. Perhaps it is psychologically appealing? There is something deeply existential about seeing Rama trapped in a situation, facing seemingly insurmountable obstacles and then watch him think, or respond, using his mental and physical skills, his way out of the situation. Who does not wish he or she could master the environment like Rama?

However, after a while, the violence becomes a means unto itself in this 150-minute film. Each fight becomes prolonged and belligerent, thrusting the earlier thrills of the film into plotting mechanics as Rama must work his way through a game of death until all evildoers are vanquished. Ultimately, the martial artistic choreography becomes bloodthirsty pornography. 

LAFF 2011: POSITION AMONG THE STARS

A scene from Position Among the Stars.

Wrinkles beneath the twinkles

By Miranda Inganni

The third part of filmmaker Leonard Retel Helmrich's trilogy about the Shamsuddin family -- which chronicles 12 years of their lives beginning with Eye of the Day (2001) and followed by Shape of the Moon (2004) -- eventually culminated in the award -winning documentary, Position Among the Stars.

Set in the tightly packed slums of Jakarta, Indonesia, Bakti Shamsuddin and his wife, Sriwyati, are trying to raise their niece, Tari. Eventually requiring assistance, Bakti brings in his mother, Rumidjah, from her quiet, almost desolate village to help out with Tari during her final year of high school.

Jockeying for position in her teenaged world, Tari seems to want to spend more time with her girlfriends -- hanging out at the mall, watching boys do bike tricks, texting on her cellphone -- than she does applying herself to school. This simply will not do. Since Tari could be the first family member to attend university, the whole family is involved in her academic career with her grandmother going so far as to pawn her house to finance Tari's future.

Full of conflict and tension, Position Among the Stars could rival the best reality television show, except that it far surpasses any of them with it's beauty and charm. Using technology that allows him and his crew to shoot in confined spaces and extreme close-ups, Retel Helmrich's cinema verité style conveys the family's saga through Tari's transition. 

As we watch her come of age, Christian family members argue with their Muslim counterparts, husband and wife fight about money, holy water and Siamese fighting fish (to the grim end) while Bakti takes advantage of the same government which employs him and an aging grandmother tries to adjust to modern life in a big city where no one can see the stars.