CinemaSerf

Having miraculously recovered from his experiences just three year earlier, our now way more experienced cop "Rama" (Iko Uwais) finds that these thugs were but the tip of the criminal iceberg and that he and his family are now firmly in the sights of the bosses intent of revenge. It seems the only way he can keep them safe is to go undercover and expose himself to a nest of brutal drug dealers and corrupt officials - including some in his own force. So, "Yuda" is born. His task begins in prison and by ingratiating himself with the ambitious "Uco" (Arifin Petra), the rather duplicitous son of one of the nasties who's sense of honour (and his henchmen) has hitherto kept the peace on the outside, he hopes to discover who is threatening his loved ones. Meantime, there are some changes going on amidst this hostile fraternity that could endanger the fragile familial truces and risk an all-out gang war. The thing about the first "Raid" was the dark, claustrophobic, environment in which our ninja hero did his stuff. This, though, takes their battles out into more open spaces and throws that intensity under a tuk-tuk. There's boundless athleticism here and the choreography of the combat routines is precise and impressive, but the story is old hat and it suffers fairly early on from a bit of "been there, seen that". It tries to present us with a plot, but that's all too easily subsumed into the repetitive action scenes that make these martial arts look as menacing as a pas-de-deux in bloodstained Levi's. It's also far, far, too long as there's such an inevitability about the whole thing that it could lose an hour and cut to the chase much sooner. Uwais is a charismatic man and the direction gets us up close and personal with the fighting, but once you've seen a guy smashed against a wall, or a room full of furniture destroyed for the fifth time, it all starts to get dull. Not a patch on the 2011 original, sorry.

In the centre of Jakarta, a criminal fraternity pretty much own a residential block where they carry on with impunity. "Tama" (Ray Sahetapy) is the kingpin who pretty much does as he pleases and has a small army at his back when the police arrive to close him down. This is an heavily armed SWAT team but what soon becomes evident is that they are outnumbered and outgunned and that their boss has engaged in this perilous operation without advising his bosses - so there will be no reinforcements, or better still, a few missiles fired into the place from a well placed helicopter. The building is riddled with CCTV so the police movements are easily monitored and quite swiftly "Lt. Wahyu" (Pierre Gruno) is down to a mere handful of folk as they try to ascend to the seventh floor. Fortunately, one of them is "Rama" (Iko Uwais) who is no slouch when it comes to martial arts and with some assistance from an unexpected source, battle lines are drawn. The dark and dingy building provides a good venue for their graphically violent activity and though it is definitely repetitive, especially later when it seems determined never to end, the sheer gymnastic athleticism here is impressive. It's a vehicle for the charismatic Uwais to show just how nimble he can be against machine guns, pistols, machetes and fridges and packs plenty in. The story plays out predictably and at times really does suffer from a ridiculous degree of an immortality syndrome with characters surviving the most impossible of physical injuries to keep on breathing, let alone fighting - but this isn't meant to be reality, it's a showcase of athletes that has a video game mentality and rarely stops for breath.

"Anderson" (John Wayne) is left short-handed by a gold rush and with his herd to get to market has to resort to engaging the services of a class of school boys who are offered $50 each if they help out. None of those lads are much over fifteen and few have any experience wrangling, so it's going to be a tough challenge. Fortunately the veteran "Nightlinger" (Roscoe Lee Brown) happens by and agrees to bring along his wagon to help play nursemaid - and off they go. What they don't appreciate, though, is that a group of would-be rustlers are in pursuit of their cows and when they discover the team doing the work are barely out of diapers, they become emboldened and set about stealing the cattle. The question is: can this motley and inexperienced team fend off the maniacal "Long Hair" (Bruce Dern) and his mercenaries? On the face of it, this could have been a disaster - but the chemistry between Wayne and Browne is a little reminiscent of his with Walter Brennan and helps steer this along quite entertainingly with decent efforts too from the lads doing the work. Interestingly, there is no sign of a Mitchum or a Wayne Jr amidst the cast of youngsters, but Nicolas Beauvy does well as do the rest as their trail turns from one of profit to one of revenge. It's sentiment-free action film with a message of self-reliance and independence underpinned by a tough-love style of humanity that Wayne delivers well as "Anderson" faces one of his more menacingly played foes from an on-form Dern. Don't be put off by the billing, it's quite a tough drama and worth a watch.