The Night Comes for Us (2018) Review: Carnage, Choreographed

Is The Night Comes for Us worth watching?

Yes, if you have the stomach for it. The Night Comes for Us contains some of the most savage and inventive fight scenes in modern action cinema, even if the story around them barely holds together. Timo Tjahjanto stages violence with a gleeful, horror-trained excess, and Joe Taslim and Iko Uwais give the action real physical conviction. The reservations are a muddled gangland plot, paper-thin characters and a level of gore so relentless that it can become numbing.

What is The Night Comes for Us about?

The Night Comes for Us is set in the criminal underworld of Jakarta and the surrounding coast. Ito (Joe Taslim) is an elite enforcer for the Six Seas, a Triad syndicate that controls smuggling routes across South East Asia. During a massacre of villagers, he does the unthinkable and spares a young girl, Reina (Asha Kenyeri Bermudez).

That single act of mercy makes him a traitor. With the girl in tow, Ito tries to disappear, and the syndicate sends wave after wave of killers after him. Among those drawn into the hunt is Arian (Iko Uwais), a figure from Ito’s past who is still bound to the organisation, while Julie Estelle plays a mysterious assassin with her own agenda and Sunny Pang a senior Triad boss.

Tjahjanto wrote and directed this Indonesian production, which was released internationally by Netflix. It is in Indonesian and runs 121 minutes.

Fight scenes that push past every limit

The action is the reason the film exists, and it is extraordinary. Tjahjanto and his fight team use every object in reach, from kitchen knives to broken bones to industrial tools, and stage the brawls in cramped butcher shops, apartments and warehouses where there is nowhere to hide. Fights go on far longer than in most action films, and the exhaustion of the performers becomes part of the drama.

Tjahjanto came to action from horror, and it shows. The film treats bodies with a splatter-movie inventiveness, so wounds and impacts are shown in lingering, bloody detail. That approach produces some of the most memorable fight choreography of the 2010s, including a set piece led by Julie Estelle and two other women that rivals anything involving the male stars.

Two action stars given room to move

Joe Taslim finally gets a lead role worthy of his skills here, and he brings a battered stoicism to Ito that makes him easy to root for even when the script gives him little to say. Iko Uwais, the star of The Raid, is used more sparingly, but his speed and precision remain dazzling, and the film’s promise of bringing the two actors together is a major part of its appeal.

The supporting ensemble of killers is colourful, if thinly sketched, and Asha Kenyeri Bermudez gives Reina a quiet presence that keeps the film’s single emotional thread alive.

Where the story buckles

Between fights, the plot is confusing and often perfunctory. Loyalties, factions and back-stories are introduced in hurried exposition and then abandoned, and the dialogue rarely rises above functional. The relationship between Ito and the child he rescues is meant to anchor the carnage, but it is never developed enough to carry real weight. By the final hour, the sheer quantity of gore starts to blunt its impact rather than heighten it.

Who should watch The Night Comes for Us?

This is for dedicated fans of martial arts and extreme action who value choreography above storytelling. It is not for casual viewers: the violence is graphic, constant and frequently grotesque, with torture, dismemberment and heavy bloodshed, and it carries adult-only classifications in many countries. Two hours of this is a lot, so choose your mood carefully.

For more in this vein:

• The Raid, the lean Indonesian classic that launched this wave of action and features both Taslim and Uwais.
• The Raid 2, a sprawling crime saga with equally ambitious fights and a stronger story.
• The Shadow Strays, Tjahjanto’s later assassin thriller, which refines the same bloody formula.

The verdict

The Night Comes for Us is a breathtaking showcase for Indonesian action talent and a frequently exhausting film. Its fights are some of the most ferocious ever put on screen, but the thin plot and unrelenting gore make it a specialist pleasure rather than a crossover hit.

Rating: 3.5/5