Man, I love elite level choreography and cinematography with violence that furthers the narrative. To boot, director Timo Tjahjanto makes it look effortless. If American action films took note, holy shit, we would be in for a treat.
Ito (Joe Taslim) has a choice to make. In the eyes of his bosses, he chose poorly. From there our bloodbath of a story begins. Bloodbath actually feels like it may be an understatement. It's like The Raid meets a graphic serial killer flick without a centralized serial killer character. I'm not sure that last sentence makes sense to you, but it does to me, so beat it, nitpicker.
Timo Tjahjanto, I believe, has proven himself to be amongst the better filmmakers working today. He's done segments in the ABCs of Death, V/H/S/2, Killers (underrated), and Headshot. And if The Night Come For Us is any indication, he has no signs of seeing an artistic peak anytime soon.
Just as the direction was spot on, so was the cast. Joe Taslim and Iko Uwais you know by now... If you don't, I don't know what to tell you. So, I wanted to bring up some other scene stealers. Let's start with Sunny Pang (Headshot) who plays Chien Wu. This dude nails his depiction of "cool-psychopath" with mob ties. Be it his look, his delivering of lines, or overall character motivation...it works. It just flat out works. Fatih played by Abimana Aryasatya, arguably the (an) unsung hero of the piece, played a badass with a heart of gold as about as well as you can play it. He racks up a hefty body count similar in number where he forces the audience to care about the situation at hand. The Operator, played by Julie Estelle absolutely embodied what, I think, "vicious cool" is. So smooth, so calculated, so good. Bobby, arguably an unsung hero himself, played by Zack Lee, was great. You're familiar with the type of character arc he's portraying but you don't care. There's a rage, a sadness, and eventual vulnerability that can't be ignored. And it plays perfectly. Lastly, Hannah Al Rashid who played the grim villain of Elena. In reality, she's a model. In the film she's a gorgeous psychopath who is no stranger to a knife. I urge you to check out her transformation on her Instagram page. Wow. Anyway, I thought she absolutely nailed her character. And I didn't care that it slightly reminded me of "Hammer Girl" in The Raid 2. Fun fact, film aficionados, The Operator and Hammer Girl are one in the same. Bravo Julie.
Speaking of The Raid, not only are critics comparing The Night Comes For Us to The Raid, but some are actually saying it's better. I couldn't disagree more. I have my reasons. To not bore you with those reasons, I'll just say it's like comparing John Carpenter's Halloween to Danny McBride and David Gordon Green's Halloween (review coming soon). Both great, but, different.
The Night Comes For Us is currently streaming on Netflix.
