Movie Review: The Night Comes for Us

The Night Comes for Us ** / *****

Directed by: Timo Tjahjanto.

Written by: Timo Tjahjanto.

Starring: Iko Uwais (Arian), Joe Taslim (Ito), Julie Estelle (The Operator), Shareefa Daanish (Triad's Sniper), Sunny Pang (Chien Wu), Zack Lee (Bobby), Hannah Al Rashid (Elena), Dian Sastrowardoyo (Alma), Salvita Decorte (Shinta), Epy Kusnandar (Night Handler), Dimas Anggara (Wisnu), Abimana Aryasatya (Fatih), Morgan Oey (Arian's Assistant), Asha Kenyeri Bermudez (Reina), Ronny P. Tjandra (Aliong), Revaldo (Yohan).

 

The Night Comes for Us is essentially two straight hours of people kicking, stabbing, shooting and otherwise killing each other in the bloodiest way imaginable, in one extended fight sequence after another, intercut with scenes of exposition, which are both needlessly complicated and utterly boring. The story essentially comes down to one assassin being sent to kill another assassin who has decided he wants to stop being an assassin and after several hundred people (I don’t think I’m exaggerating) get brutally killed, and gallons of fake blood is spilled on every surface, the two – who, oh yes, were once friends – finally do face off against each other. No bonus points for guessing it is an abandoned warehouse, because it’s always in an abandoned warehouse, unless it’s in a parking garage, that looks like an abandoned warehouse – but since they get that location out of the way in the first hour, you know what’s coming.

 

There is nothing inherently wrong with movies that almost all action, and very little of anything else. Asian action cinema has certainly always had films like that – and they reached their peak with the John Woo films of the later 1980 and early 1990s. But even in films like The Killer and Hardboiled, there was some plot, some characters to care about, and the storytelling was as operatic as the gun battles were. Director Timo Tjahjanto clearly knows how to direct a bloody action sequence – the action is what worked best in last year’s Headshot, which he co-directed – and he gets points for just all the ways he comes up with killing people in this film. He would have to, considering hundreds of people die, in all sorts of ways.

 

And yet, like Headshot, Tjahjanto doesn’t quite realize that he either needs a plot that makes you care about the characters being killed or doing the killing, or else stripped to the bone so it doesn’t matter. Both films are needlessly long – The Night Comes for Us goes on for more than two hours, and Headshot is nearly as long – when at 80-85 minutes, you may have a kickass action, at that length, you have a slog. His best work as a director was co-directing a segment of VHS 2 – where he still went on longer than everyone else – but had a limit of just how indulgent he could be. Here, there is no such limit.

 

The result is a film that eventually gives you a headache, because it’s just straight ahead blood for huge, long stretches, followed by needless exposition. What we really need to know is that “good guy”, Ito (Joe Taslim) has a job working for the top smugglers in the area that gives him license to kill without consequences, as long as the good keep flowing, but even he has his limits. After slaughtering pretty much an entire town, he cannot bring himself to kill a little girl – and decides to run off with her instead. This makes his bosses angry, so they send his best friend Arian (Iko Uwais – because of course it is) to kill him. This is perhaps what counts for stretching for Iko Uwais, who most of the time would be the “hero” of the film – and he shows us why, because he is completely unable to pull off the dramatic side of this role. But don’t worry, he still knows how to kill people real good.

 

And the killing is why most will see the film. And make no mistake, the killing is done with skill – whether it’s in the apartment scene or the parking garage scene or the butcher shop scene (that one’s probably the best – because they use parts of animal’s carcasses to kill each other) and a half dozen other ones. Taken individually, all of these scenes may well be good unto themselves – even if they all undeniably go on too long. Stacked on top of each other, they grow dull.

 

There is skill to Tjahjanto to be sure – but I think if he’s going to make a truly good movie at some point, he needs to work with someone else’s screenplay – a tight, 90 minute films, with several action sequences not wall to wall bloodletting. That may well be what he needs – because right now, no matter how much skill is on display, it all feels like one long, bloody slog.

Movie Review: Headshot

Headshot *** / *****

Directed by: Kimo Stamboel & Timo Tjahjanto.

Written by: Timo Tjahjanto.

Starring: Iko Uwais (Ishmael), Chelsea Islan (Ailin), Sunny Pang (Lee), Very Tri Yulisman (Besi), Julie Estelle (Rika), Yayu A.W. Unru (Romli).

 

Iko Uwais is a truly talented motion picture martial artist. No, he isn’t in the Bruce Lee-Jackie Chan-Jet Li territory yet, but one day, he may get there. I even admire how he’s been fairly selective in his choices up until now – Headshot is only his sixth film since his debut in 2009. He is still best known for the two Raid films (2011 and 2014) – even if he did have a brief appearance in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Uwais is pretty much the only reason to see Headshot, and overlong, bloody martial arts movies in which he plays a man with amnesia, who has to save the beautiful doctor who nursed him back to health and take down a criminal enterprise, mostly through the art of kicking people. He is excellent at that art, and when Headshot is just about Uwais fighting, it is excellent. Unfortunately, there is a whole lot more time than necessary when Uwais isn’t kicking things, and that drags the movie down.

 

The movie opens with a great extended sequence inside a prison – where a cop comes in to mock a prisoner named Lee (Sunny Pang) – who is being kept under extreme security, apparently facing a death sentence. Of course, Lee will find a way to get out of that prison cell in an action sequence that sets the stage for what they will all look like for the rest of the film – it is long, brutal and bloody, and doesn’t skimp on the body count. By the end of the first 10 minutes of Headshot, dozens of people are dead on the floor – and we’re just getting started.

 

You don’t really need to know the plot of Headshot to enjoy it. Basically, Lee is a bad guy, Ishmael (Uwais) is a man who wakes up om a beach with amnesia, who eventually figures out what his connection with Lee is, and has to fight through his henchmen to get to him – especially after kidnaps Ailin (Chelsea Islan) – the beautiful doctor who helped Ishmael, and a small, innocent girl – from a bus, after machine gunning everyone else on that bus down. Ishmael may not remember who he is at first, but there doesn’t seem to be any problem with him remembering how to kick people.

 

In many ways, you could say that Headshot resembles a video game – as Ismael has to fight his way past one henchman after another, in different colorful locales, and each a little more difficult than the last before getting to Lee. As a fighter, Uwais is generous – in that while he is always going to win, he lets whoever his sparring partner is get in more than a few good licks. The action sequences in the movie are visceral and exciting – and show more skill than American action directors, who rely on rapid fire editing to falsely create that kind of tension. Here, there are extended, long takes of fighting, and it is exciting.

 

The rest of the movie is, to put it kindly, not all that good. The story is lame and I hated the fact that the brought in a child just to put her in peril. But the reason to watch the film is to watch the action – and on that level, and only that level, Headshot delivers.

Movie Review: V/H/S 2

V/H/S 2
Directed by: Simon Barrett (Tape 49), Adam Wingard (Clinical Trials), Eduardo Sanchez & Gregg Hale (A Ride in he Park), Gareth Evans & Timo Tjahjanto (Safe Haven), Jason Eisener (Alien Abduction Slumber Party).
Written by: Simon Barrett (Tape 49), John Davies (Clinical Trials), Jamie Nash & Eduardo Sánchez (A Ride in the Park), Gareth Evans & Timo Tjahjanto (Safe Haven), Jason Eisener (Alien Abduction Slumber Party).
Starring: Kelsy Abbott, Hannah Al Rashid, Fachry Albar, Oka Antara, Devon Brookshire, Samantha Gracie, L.C. Holt, Hannah Hughes, Clarissa, Kevin Hunt, Epy Kusnandar, Lawrence Michael Levine, Carly Robell, Mindy Robinson, Jay Saunders, Jeremie Saunders, Andrew Suleiman, Adam Wingard, John T. Woods.

Last year’s VHS was a nasty little surprise – a horror anthology that actually worked. It featured five shorts – two of which were great, one was very good, one was good and one was awful, to go with an average framing device (an excellent batting average for this type of film). The film used the found footage genre in new and interesting ways – and was also quite scary and disturbing. The film was successful enough on its limited budget to warrant a sequel – but for me, it doesn’t come close to matching the original. The first film had a remarkable consistency in its tone – all violent, nasty little films – and I suppose V/H/S 2 does as well for the most part – but this time the mood is lighter, there’s far more black comedy and over the top gore than the first time around. There is one excellent section to go along with three mediocre ones, and a framing device that may not be any better than the first film, but at least is shorter. When I watched the original VHS, I started out watching in the dark, and slowly turned all the lights in my house on as it went along. This time, I wasn’t scared in the least at any point.

The framing device this time is about a P.I. and his assistant who have been hired by a worried mother to find her college age son. They go to his house, and don’t find him, but do find his laptop open cued to a video of him talking about the “tapes” – which the assistant then starts to watch. The wraparound’s surprise ending wouldn’t have been a surprise if she had just watched his whole video from the start, but then that would spoil the fun, right? This segment is directed by Simon Barrett, who wrote two of the segments for the last film but hadn’t directed a feature before, probably because no one else wanted to direct the wraparound segment. It’s probably better than the wraparound from the first film, but only because it doesn’t drag on as long.

The first real segment is directed by Adam Wingard, who made the wraparound segment of the first film, so as a reward was given a chance to direct an actual segment this time. Wingard’s segment of the horrible omnibus horror film The ABCs of Death (Q is for Quack) was one of that film’s best – and I pretty much loved You’re Next, released after two years in limbo, in August. Wingard’s segment here – which he also stars in – is about a man who gets an eye transplant – with predictably horrible results. As with Q is for Quack, Wingard tries for a darkly comedic tone in this segment to go along with the horror, but the two don’t mix very well this time – and other than a few superficial shocks, there isn’t much here. It’s not horrible, just not very good either.

Next up is Gregg Hale and Eduardo Sanchez’s A Ride in the Park, which is about a young man who goes for a bike ride in the park, and is set upon by zombies. Zombies are over exposed right now, so if you’re going to do a zombie film, at least come up with an original way to do them – and this one doesn’t. Again, the tone is lighter, and never scary, but considering Sanchez is one of the directors behind The Blair Witch Project – which for better or worse is responsible for this found footage genre that is hot right now – the results are disappointingly bland.

By far the longest – and best segment – comes next. Gareth Evans (who directed last year’s excellent action film The Raid: Redemption) who teams up with Timo Tjahjanto (who made an awful segment for The ABC’s of Death) to make their extremely disturbing and creepy segment Safe Haven. It starts with a documentary crew filming a cult on their compound, and the film gradually increases the sense of impending doom, until it explodes with some of the best and most disturbing moments of the VHS series so far. True, the ending was weak, but everything up until then was pretty much brilliant.

The segment I was dreading closes the film – Jason Eisener’s Alien Abduction Slumber Party. Eisener is the man behind the absolutely terrible film Hobo with a Shotgun, and another of the worst segments of The ABC’s of Death, so I was just hoping the segment would be over quickly. But to my surprise, it wasn’t horrible. Eisener is clearly trying to tap into those 1980s movies about a group of renegade kids – like say, The Goonies – only this time, it’s about a sleepover that takes a scary turn when aliens arrive (hence the title). The segment really isn’t good – out of all of the segments, this one boasts the most shaky camera work – but it’s not that bad either – easily the best thing Eisener has been responsible for so far.

V/H/S 2 is not as good as the original. Sorry, but it’s true, and I’m kind of mystified that many critics seem to think it’s much better. Other than Safe Haven, there really isn’t anything great here – although to be fair, there isn’t anything god awful either. And I did appreciate the clever ways the filmmakers chose to film their “found footage” films this time – Wingard literally through his eye, Hale and Sanchez through a camera strapped to a bike helmet, Eisener by a camera strapped to a small dog. Still, the most traditional one – Safe Haven, through the eye of a documentarian’s camera – remains the best.

It’s a generally accepted rule that omnibus film are always better in theory than they are in practice. Quick – name a great omnibus film. I don’t think there is one that is great all the way through. Most are like New York Stories, which has one great segment (in that case by Scorsese), one horrible segment (Coppola) and one mediocre (Allen). V/H/S is actually one of the best I can think of – but perhaps what V/H/S 2 proves is that was an anomaly more than anything else – because this film, like most of its ilk, has one segment worth watching, surrounded by mediocrity.

Movie Review: The ABCs of Death

The ABCs of Death
Directed by: Nacho Vigalondo (A Is for Apocalypse) , Adrián García Bogliano (B Is for Bigfoot), Ernesto Díaz Espinoza (C is for Cycle), Marcel Sarmiento (D Is for Dogfight), Angela Bettis (E is for Exterminate), Noboru Iguchi (F is for Fart), Andrew Traucki (G is for Gravity), Thomas Cappelen Malling (H is for Hydro-Electric Diffusion), Jorge Michel Grau (I is for Ingrown), Yudai Yamaguchi (J is for Jidai-geki), Anders Morgenthaler (K is for Klutz), Timo Tjahjanto (L is for Libido), Ti West (M Is for Miscarriage), Banjong Pisanthanakun (N is for Nuptials), Bruno Forzani & Hélène Cattet (O is for Orgasm), Simon Rumley (P Is for Pressure), Adam Wingard (Q Is for Quack), Srdjan Spasojevic (R Is for Removed), Jake West (S is for Speed), Lee Hardcastle (T Is for Toilet), Ben Wheatley (U Is for Unearthed), Kaare Andrews (V is for Vagitus), Jon Schnepp (W is for WTF?), Xavier Gens (X Is for XXL), Jason Eisener (Y Is for Youngbuck), Yoshihiro Nishimura (Z is for Zetsumetsu).
Written by: Kaare Andrews, Simon Barrett, Hélène Cattet, Bruno Forzani, Adrián García Bogliano, Lee Hardcastle, Noboru Iguchi, Yoshihiro Nishimura, Simon Rumley, Jon Schnepp, Srdjan Spasojevic, Nacho Vigalondo, Dimitrije Vojnov, Ti West, Yudai Yamaguchi.
Featuring: Ingrid Bolsø Berdal, Erik Aude, Kyra Zagorsky, Lainey, Iván González, Dallas Malloy, Sarah Bonrepaux, Lee Hardcastle, Fraser Corbett, Peter Pedrero, Darenzia, Arisa Nakamura, Yoshie, Hiroko Yashiki, Lucy Clements, M@tch, Yui Murata, Je$$ica, Harold Torres, Matías Oviedo, Alejandra Urdiaín, Takashi Nishina, Chems Dahmani, Vanja Lazin, Eva Llorach, Demo Tanaka, Greg De Cuir, Hiroaki Murakami, Tsuyoshi Kazuno, Pablo Guisa Koestinger, Miguel Insua, Arata Yamanaka, Martine Årnes Sørensen, Sadashi Matsubayashi, Manon Beuchot, Brenden McVeigh, Daisuke Sasaki, Kurumi Ochiai, Hozake Yamada, Xavier Magot, Seminosuke Murasugi, Joshua Diolosa, Juanita Ringeling, Tomomi Sugai, Honoka Murakami, Naoko Takahashi, Greta Martinez, Katsuyuki Miyake, Atsushi Hiroki, Yoshio Komatsu, Kim Richardson.

When you have a film that is just over two hours long, and contains 26 short films about death, I’m not sure how I can go about reviewing the film without it sounding like a hit list – running down the films that work, the films that don’t, and those who fall in the middle. So perhaps it’s lucky for me that the vast majority of the short films in The ABCs of Death are absolute crap – because then it’s easier to pass judgment on the movie as a whole – it sucks. True, there are some interesting shorts, some funny shorts, but none of them are the least bit scary – disappointing for a supposed horror film. And none of them are truly great either. While the idea of the omnibus film is almost always better in theory than it practice, most of them contain one or two truly terrific segments to justify watching the movie as a whole. Not so with The ABCs of Death. I have a feeling that even the best sequences in The ABCs of Death simply look better because of the crap they sit alongside.

The basic concept behind the film is simple. 26 filmmakers are given a letter, and then have to come up with a word, and then get about five minutes to make a short film about death using that word. The movie doesn’t tell you the director or the title of any one film until it ends – then we get the title like “A is for Apocalypse” or “D if for Dogfight” and the director. The 26 filmmakers picked come from around the world – although unless I’m mistaken the Middle East and Africa aren’t represented. For the most part, I hadn’t heard of the filmmakers before seeing this film – and I’m not sure I’ll ever watch another film by most of these filmmakers.

So, let’s rundown the title real quick. The films that work:  D is for Dogfight by Marcel Sarmiento, a disturbing, violent film, wordless film that shows far more promise than the director’s god-awful feature Dead Girl. N is for Nuptials by Banjong Pisanthakun, a funny film about a man, his girlfriend and a parrot that turns deadly. O is for Orgasm by Bruno Forzani and Helene Cattet, which is an almost avant-garde little film. Q is for Quack by Adam Wingard, which is essentially about Wingard complaining how he got stuck with the letter Q. R is for Removed by Srdjan Spasojevic, a disturbingly graphic film, that I have no idea what it means, but I will not soon forget. U is for Unearthed by Ben Wheatley, a POV of a man being chased by an angry mob. Best of all is probably Xavier Gens X is for XXL, easily the most disturbing and bloody of the lot.

The films that are terrible include: E is for Exterminate by horror mainstay Angela Bettis, which is simply ridiculous and cheesy. J is for Jidai-geki by Yudai Yamaguchi about a samurai executioner and funny faces. K is for Klutz by Anders Morgenthaler, about a turd that will not be flushed.  P is for Pressure, which takes one ridiculous turn after another. T is for Toilet, a stop motion animated film that doesn’t work on any level.

Somewhere in between are: A is for Apocalypse by Nacho Vigalondo, about a woman attacking the man she was poisoning for months because with what is going outside time has run out. B is for Bigfoot by Adrian Garcia Bogliano, which plays like one of those scary stories we tell kids, because that’s precisely what it is. C is for Cycle by Ernesto Diaz Espinoza, which even at only five minutes starts to repeat itself too soon. G is for Gravity by Andrew Trauki, a POV of a surfer’s last ride. I is for Ingrown by Jorge Michel Grau, which is a somewhat disturbing look at a serial killer and his victim. S is for Speed, a play on exploitation films, with a horrible ending. W is for WTF? By Jon Scnepp, which at least lives up to its name.

And then there are the following films, which are quite simply an absolute embarrassment for all involved. F is for Fart by Noboru Iguchi, which is even more disgusting and ridiculous than the unpromising title. H is for Hydro-Electric Diffusion by Thomas Cappelen Malling with people dressed as giant dogs that somehow also involves Nazis. L is for Libido by Timo Tjahjanto about a ridiculous and disgusting competition. M is for Miscarriage by Ti West, who normally I love, but whose film is simply the laziest of the bunch. V is for Vagitus by Kaare Andrews, which kind of played like SNL’s Laser Cats. Y is for Youngbuck by Jason Eisener, who after Hobo with a Shotgun, once again proves why he should never be allowed to direct again. And finally, Z is for Zetsumetsu, which would be offensive if it weren’t so utterly, completely ridiculous.

So, for those you keeping track at home, that is 7 decent films, 6 that are not good, but not horrible, 4 terrible films, and 9 complete embarrassments. That’s not a good average. If there’s a lesson to be learned from The ABCs of Death it’s that omnibus films are almost never a good idea, that trying to squeeze too many into a 2 hour running time is an even worse idea, and that perhaps giving directors “complete artistic freedom” as the prologue states is a bad idea, since when you do, they often come up with complete shit. I doubt I will see a worse film than some of the entries in this omnibus film all year – and the decent chapters cannot save this from being a complete waste of time.