The Night Comes For Us

UK Release Date. 19 October 2018
Certification. 18
Running Time. 2 hours 1 min
Director. Timo Tjahjanto
Cast. Julie Estelle, Joe Taslim, Iko Uwais.
Rating. 32%

Review.

One half of The Mo Brothers - the Indonesian filmmakers responsible for the likes of Killers, Headshot and May The Devil Take You - writer and director Timo Tjahjanto returned in October 2018 to direct the Netflix original film, The Night Comes For Us. 

Tjahjanto honed his craft on The Raid and The Raid 2, alongside Gareth Evans, and when reviewing The Night Comes For Us, continued comparison is unavoidable. Indeed, The Night Comes For Us feels somewhat like a reunion - Ito Uwais, Joe Taslim and Julie Estelle are all reunited with Tjahjanto.

The Night Comes For Us uses the Asian criminal underworld as the backdrop for a simple story about redemptive salvations, second chances, and the underlying bonds of brotherhood. The leanest of plots has Ito (Joe Talsim), in an apparently unheralded moment of humanity, spare a young girl (Asha Kenyeri Bermudez) from execution, much to the displeasure of the Triad masters that employ him. 

This is not a film for the squeamish. The Night Comes For Us is violent. Very violent. The initial fight sequence sets the tone - a hyper-violent assault in the backroom of a nightclub. From there, every single death seems beyond brutal, and by the time a grenade goes off in an elevator, you’d think that the film couldn’t get any bloodier. But it does. 

But where The Raid's use of Pencak Silat was skillfully choreographed to produce a relentless, beautiful, dark ballet, The Night Comes For Us has none of that. The climactic final confrontation between Ito and Arian (Iko Uwais) should be an emotional crescendo between divided brothers, but is, instead, hollow, ridiculous and aggressively unpleasant.

Utterly insane, with intensely brutal fight sequences, however, The Night Comes For Us inherently lacks engagement with the audience. The film may be technically adroit, but as a drama, it's a frustrating disappointment and missed opportunity.