French Netflix film “Lost Bullet 2”, the sequel to “Lost Bullet” (2020), wants to drive further than its predecessor, but it ends up doing a bit more warm-up with some bangs and crashes while mostly sticking to its previously establishes plot formula. Again, its tough guy hero gets himself into a big trouble, and, yes, we are accordingly served with a lot of action as before while he tries to reach his goal by any means necessary.

The opening part of the film begins from the point around where the story of “Lost Bullet” ends. After managing to clear his name in the end, Lino (Alban Lenoir) becomes determined about the revenge for the death of someone who was like a brother to him, but the situation becomes more complicated for him and others around him. While one of the two dirty cops responsible for Lino’s previous plight ran away, the other one, Marco (Sébastien Lalanne), goes into a witness protection program in exchange for his testimony against some bigger dirty cop, but Julia (Stéfi Celma) and her direct boss Moss (Pascale Arbillot) choose to hide this from Lino.

Meanwhile, Lino focuses on finding that corrupt cop who ran away, but, no matter how much he tries, it only becomes clear to him and others that his target remains beyond their reach at least for now. As advised by Julia, Lino comes to work more for their special police squad, and, what do you know, he eventually becomes one of the top members of the squad one year later, in addition to being married to the wife of that corrupt cop. 

Of course, this relatively stable life of his does not last that long thanks to those powerful dirty cops Julia and Moss have tried to arrest in the meantime. For getting rid of Marco as soon as possible, they decide to use Lino because he is still angry about Marco did, and Lino soon finds himself led to a certain remote spot where Marco has been hiding for a while.

After belatedly realizing that Julia and Moss lied to him, Lino is not so pleased to say the least. Despite his remaining anger, he chooses to bring Marco to the headquarters of his squad, but, not so surprisingly, those powerful dirty cops are already ready to take away their target, and Lino naturally comes to clash with not only them but also several colleagues of his including Julia, who is ordered to stop Lino by any means necessary for retrieving Marco. 

What follows next is pretty predictable. First, there is a long and intense physical action sequence where Lino fights against a bunch of cops and policemen as he previously did in “Lost Bullet”. Second, we get several vehicle action sequences as he furiously drives his modified vehicle recently equipped with a certain special device, and we accordingly see lots of police cars getting crashed and damaged.

Because he already did sort of test run in the previous film, director/co-writer Guillaume Pierret, who also wrote the screenplay along with his lead actor, is surely ready to go for more action and thrill. The action scenes in the film are mostly slick and competent under his skillful direction, and you will particularly enjoy how that certain device of Lino’s modified vehicle is utilized later in the story. Although lots of things happen hurriedly along the story, the movie is usually clear about where it is heading along with its hero, and you may overlook a bunch of plot contrivance strewn along its narrative course at least for a while.

However, just like its predecessor, the movie is still superficial and mediocre in terms of narrative and characterization. While it tries to bring a bit of gravitas via the complicated relationship between Lino and Juila, that is soon put aside as it pays more attention to all those clashes and bangs on the screen, and the same thing can be said about Lino’s rather ironic marital relationship, which, considering the very last scene of the film, may be explored further in the next sequel. The villains in the story surely look threatening with all those firearms and vehicles ready to be used against Lino, but they remain as bland and uninteresting figures to be eliminated sooner or later, and the movie also fails to flesh out several other substantial supporting figures including Marco, who simply functions as a mere wild card in the growing conflict between Lino and Marco.

At least, Alban Lenoir and his fellow returning cast members fill their respective parts without much difficulty. Besides believable in his character’s steely determination, Lenoir looks more natural here while demonstrating more potential as an action movie lead performer. Again, Stéfi Celma and Julia Pascale Arbillot are stuck with their thankless supporting roles, but they smoothly slip into their characters without much difficulty. Sébastien Lalanne and Diego Martín, who plays another crucial supporting character in the story, manage to leave some impression despite their under-developed parts, and Martín is effective when his character comes to take some considerable risk for Lino later in the story.    

Overall, “Lost Bullet 2” does not surpass its predecessor much, but it leaves some expectation as it is immediately followed by the next sequel, which was incidentally released on Netflix a few weeks ago. Now I watched “Last Bullet” and “Last Bullet 2”, so I guess I have done my homework, and I sincerely hope that I will be more entertained in case of that next sequel in question.