THE NIGHT COMES FOR US (2018) *** ½

Ito (Joe Taslim) is a badass who is part of a team of Triad enforcers known as “The Six Seas”.  He refuses to murder a little girl in cold blood after a beachside raid and they trip to skip town together.  Arian (Iko Uwais), Ito’s best friend, is then called in to take them out to cement his position as Ito’s replacement in The Six Seas.  

Director Timo (Headshot) Tjahjanto plunges headfirst into the realm of ultraviolent Kung Fu nirvana and barely stops to catch his breath.  Along the way, he gives us a number of impressive (and oh so bloody) fight sequences.  Uwais has a great introduction scene in a nightclub.  When a jackass disrespects him, he shoves a wine bottle down the dude’s throat and then mops the floor with his associates.  Taslim gets a badass brawl in a meat locker where he turns several cleaver-wielding goons into briskets as well as a white-knuckle close-quarters battle with some dirty cops inside the back of a SWAT truck.  There’s also an apartment building massacre that showcases nods to not only George Romero, but Martin Scorsese.  The inevitable battle between Taslim and Uwais is a grueling endurance match as the two combatants relentlessly beat each other to bloody pulps.

The Night Comes for Us feels slight in some respects as there’s a barest pretense of a plot.  Once the action starts, the audience is filled in on the fly of the characters’ motivations and plot exposition.  I’m not really complaining, but at two hours, it all becomes a bit numbing after a while.  I’m sure there could’ve been at least a little nip and tuck here and there.  Then again, I wouldn’t have traded some of these action beats for anything.  There are gory moments aplenty, but it’s the smaller touches (like someone casually pulling off their own finger or banging their shin against a steel girder or having an Exact-o blade breaking off in their forearm) that are often the most stomach-churning.

There’s perhaps a bit too much handheld camerawork in the finale, but for the most part, the choreography is stellar.  Tjahjanto fills the film with flashy stylistic touches.  The neon-drenched lighting and heavy synth soundtrack make it feel like a Nicolas Winding Refn movie in some places.  

If you loved Uwais and Taslim in The Raid, you are officially on notice.  Consider this a subpoena.  You are hereby summonsed to see The Night Comes for Us.  Is it as good as The Raid?  Nope, but then again, what could be?