Okay, I thought it was ICP. Fuck me, right?

The Raid 2 takes place just a few hours after the first Raid. Rama (protagonist of the first) knows first hand that the goons in the building were just little fish swimming in a small area of a huge pond. What's outside of that building is where the real fear is. The Raid: Redemption is a relatively small, isolated, claustrophobic film compared to Berndal, simply showcasing a gonzo group of cops caught in a web of corruption, stretching only as far as the walls can go. Now with vengeance and justice stuck on Rama's mind, he realizes very soon it's not going to be so simple.

Take everything that made Redemption so great, and brutal, and crank that shit up ten-fold. With these characters not beholden to the confines of brick walls, the story unravels to goliath heights. I don't think anyone knew Gareth Evans could actually muster anything other than some of the greatest choreography, much less an intricate, detailed intertwined story. If his quest was to turn a contained plotline of survival into a crime saga worthy of "Godfather" complexity, he certainly succeeded.

Evans created intensity in tight spaces with Redemption. Berndal avoids repeating that formula, moving the chaos to prison and the streets, shoving Rama into an unforgiving world of assassins and duplicity, asking the weary figure of nobility to navigate a new realm of enemies that emerge from anywhere at a time. it's a considerable widening of "The Raid" universe, pitting Rama against various criminal interests, forced to rely on his fight skills and heartfelt need to serve justice to cap a gushing well of mayhem.

Many different names and faces emerge throughout the film, all playing to a greater purpose, revealing plotlines with considerable depth. The violence, or ultraviolence, is much more extreme. I've seen NC-17 films more tamer than this. The number of times I said oh shit from each broken bone, or shotgun blast to faces, or hammers through mouths was more than 30 times I assure you. But with all this style, it has more than enough substance to go around, which makes it a very fulfilling film. And it should considering it's two and half hours.

All In All, The Raid: Berndal is hands down one of the best action films ever made. It's visceral, well-written, and even thought provoking believe it or not. A Raid film? Thought-provoking? Believe it. See it. But see The Raid: Redemption first, it literally won't make sense if you don't see redemption first. But I'm sure you already knew that. 9.5/10

It's one half of ICP. The good half. Such as it is.

If I'm a bitch for watching this at least twice a day, then so be it.

Reviews for these should be up within the next few days:

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http://www.impawards.com/intl/france...phete_ver2.jpg

Reviews that should not be up:

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Sorry Bat, this is too painful to actually articulate into words. You want a review? my ears vomit when I listen to this shit. It's everything you imagine it to sound like, avoid at all costs. And if you honestly listen to this un-ironically and jam to it, may God have mercy on your soul.

Looking forward to your Lobster review.
It isn't perfect, but I really enjoyed it.

That's all I really wanted.

I watched the first 30 minutes so far, then my sister barged in and demanded to watch the rest of 10 Cloverfield Lane that we couldn't finish the other night. I suppose I'll review that too.

You understand this blows too, right? It reminds me of this white guy I knew with a shitty beard that wore a necklace of the ICP symbol that watched anime and desperately wanted me to get into one night and I was just not feeling it.

Oh I wasn't at all expecting you to get into it. I just wanted to be a dick. At least Machine got through his ICP gauntlet. Pussy.

A Prophet opens up thrusting us directly into a hostile French prison, as a 19 year old naïve youth finds himself observing a large man squawking back and forth with a guard, realizing then that the rules here are much different than what his expectations were ever perceived as. It's a dangerous place, and legal jargon doesn't help the situation for him at all. He then falls under the sway of Corsican mobsters, led by a man named Luciani, who asks Malek for a devastating favor that he must comply with or else he receives no protection from the Corsican faction, and certainly will get killed. The stakes are quickly established, turning a two and a half hour film into a clenching nail-biter.

I really had no idea of what to expect from this film, but what I did receive couldn't QUITE blow me away as was led to believe, but nonetheless this picture pulses with menace, creating a striking portrait of the years spent deep inside a turbulent prison society. Through Malek's eyes, we watch as mouse turns to man, slowly but surely understanding the customs and rules inside the prison, and the sense of control a mob family actually has from within penitentiary walls. What this picture lacks in violence (although there are moments of brutal, bloody disorder) it completely makes up for in a sense of atmosphere. People stare for way too long, motivations are all over the place, and moments like these kept me wondering just what the fuck was about to transpire.

Malik, played by Tahar Rahim, puts in career best work. The transformation of him turning into a crime boss not only feels fluid throughout the story, but well deserved, as he intelligently weaves his own motivation into the lives of even sketchier people than the one's he's connected with inside. He isn't a good man, by any means, but in some morbid sense I often created a sympathetic outlook to the way he enjoyed embarking on his own endeavors, to the disdain of Luciani and the rest of the Corsicans.

All In All, Un Prophete builds a pyramid of criminal intent that pays homage to the great underworld stories while indulging in its own spine-chilling mischief behind bars. Well worth over 2 hours of my time. 8/10