THE NIGHT COMES FOR US: An Action Movie Classic Is Born

“Well I’d love to talk some more. Let’s kill each other instead.”

Violence is the language of The Night Comes for Us, the latest Indonesian action hit to earn some serious buzz in America. Sure, there’s enough expository dialogue to give everyone just enough context to understand who’s killing each other and why, but writer/director Timo Tjahjanto tells his story almost exclusively through some seriously unbelievable fight sequences. Even some of the emotional beats are communicated primarily through the action.

And not just any kind of action. No, this is a bone-crunching, arm-snapping, machete-wielding, blood-splattering spectacle of the highest order, packed with so much extraordinary carnage that virtually every audience member will be screaming with an acute blend of perverse delight and are-you-seeing-this incredulity.

If Mission: Impossible – Fallout is the year’s slickest example of masterful blockbuster filmmaking, then The Night Comes for Us is 2018’s messiest, goriest, most flat-out insane burst of gangster-inspired mayhem. It’s the type of pure adrenaline hit all action junkies crave.

Crime Syndicate Hunts Rogue Operative

The story is rather simple, even if it’s more emotionally dynamic than you would expect from this kind of action extravaganza. In fact, the film provides much of its exposition in a series of opening title cards, describing the organized crime situation in South Asia. The Triad is the major syndicate in and around Indonesia, and they’re responsible for smuggling drugs, weapons, people, etc. Within the Triad, the most important members are known as the Six Seas, responsible for taking “extreme measures” to keep things under control.

Joe Taslim stars as Ito, and at the start of the film, he’s one of the Six Seas. But in those fateful opening moments, Ito makes a choice that will change his life for good. During a village massacre, he theoretically should kill everyone in sight. Yet the sight of a crying girl awakens a moral conscience deep inside him, and Ito makes the crucial choice to kill the members of his gang instead, sparing this young girl’s life. Of course, that doesn’t settle well with the Triad. Chien Wu (Sunny Pang) activates Arian (Iko Uwais) to hunt down this rogue member of the Six Seas, promising the hungry young power player Ito’s spot when he finishes the job.

Making things more complicated is Arian’s history with Ito and his associates, dating back to a time when they were young and reckless. With his back against the wall, Ito himself turns to his former friends and brothers in arms, including Bobby (Zack Lee) and Fatih (Abimana Aryasatya). As the Triad and other villainous groups close in, Ito and friends will have to fight to protect themselves – and an innocent young girl caught in the syndicate’s warpath.

Surprising Depth Leads To Big Thrills

This is storytelling with essentially functional goals in mind, meant to take Ito and company from Fight Scene A to Fight Scene B. That’s what the genre requires, and on a basic level, Tjahjanto delivers. But I think there’s more going on here than just empty action and flat narrative mechanics. The Night Comes for Us is, ironically, a film about the futility of violence itself. Ito, Arian, Fatih – they were all friends once, and now they’re just smaller pawns in a much bigger game. They’re at the mercy of an organization that views them as disposable, using their own ambitions as motivation until they’re no longer needed.

So amid the barrage of spectacular bloodshed (an alternate title for this movie could be 10,000 Ways To Die), there’s a sad and surprisingly poignant story about the decisions that punched this particular gang’s one-way ticket to a series of gruesome deaths. In one respect, it’s the classic “crime never pays” tale, only with an emphasis on explosive mayhem and broken bones. On the other hand, it feels a little more nihilistic, but Tjahjanto supplements that with a great deal of sympathy for Ito and his crew.

The Night Comes for Us would still be tremendous if it didn’t have such an unexpectedly strong grip on its characters and thematic framework, but these are undoubtedly factors working in the film’s favor. When Ito and Arian throw down for the final time, it matters. When characters die, whether they’re heroes or villains or somewhere in-between, there’s a genuine impact on the viewer. When it seems these brothers have run out of options, you can feel your heart sink just a little bit.

Jaw-Dropping Fight Scenes For The Ages

But even if the core story ends up being a feature and not a bug, it’s really not the reason anyone’s pressing play on Netflix. Let’s be honest here – we’re all coming for the action. And man, does this film deliver.

I almost feel like it’s completely pointless to attempt a cohesive description of the stuff that goes down in The Night Comes for Us. Words fail us from time to time, and this is one of those rare occasions. I can lavish the film with every hyperbolic adjective in the book, but in the end, you might just have to see it for yourself.

That won’t keep me from trying. There’s a scene in the film where one of the main characters drives a car into a group of men, all of whom are firing machine guns directly at him. Now that I think about it, this happens many times throughout. Broadly speaking, this is pretty much the best metaphor I can come up with for the experience of watching The Night Comes for Us. It’s like you’re in a speeding car, screaming your head off, directly in the path of imminent death and danger. I mean this in the best possible way. It’s an utter blast, and we’re just along for the ride.

The closest thing we have to these movies in mainstream American cinema is the John Wick franchise, and it’s not even in the same league as the projects Tjahjanto and The Raid director Gareth Evans have put together over the years. The incredible sense of innovation, the cruel creativity, the sheer pervasiveness of the mayhem – there’s simply no comparison to this. Each action sequence adds something new to the equation, and when everything is a weapon, the unpredictability is off the charts.

Plus, you can’t beat those crowd-pleasing moments designed to make audiences cheer, scream, or shout “Did you see that???” at the top of their lungs; there’s no question that The Night Comes for Us wants an audible reaction from its audience. I can’t speak for everyone else, but I was yelling and jumping in gleeful disbelief even from the comfort of my couch.

The Night Comes for Us: Conclusion

It’s insanity. And I loved every second of it. After the Raid movies put the genre world on notice, Timo Tjahjanto has lit the fuse for what could be a revolutionary new series of unparalleled lunacy. The director took to Twitter this weekend to promote the film, emphasizing that he has ideas for other stories set in this universe should The Night Comes for Us become a hit. We could have more of this madness, just as long as Netflix gets the data they want.

Let me tell you, I don’t think I’ve wanted a follow-up this bad since The Nice Guys. So if you’re a fan or a newbie or just someone looking for a bloodbath of an action movie, move The Night Comes for Us to the very, very top of your list. This is a rush, plain and simple. I can’t wait to witness it all again.

What did you think of The Night Comes for Us? Are you a fan of director Timo Tjahjanto’s previous films? Let us know in the comments below!

The Night Comes for Us was released worldwide on Netflix on October 19.