Timur (2025) Review

“Timur” Poster

Director: Iko Uwais
Cast: Iko Uwais, Aufa Assagaf, Macho Hungan, Andri Mashadi, Yusuf Mahardika, Yasamin Jasem, Prabowo Subianto, Jimmy Kobogau, Bizael Tanasale
Running Time: 101 min. 

By Z Ravas

It’s surprising that Iko Uwais’ 2025 directorial debut Timur dropped Stateside on VOD this week with little to no fanfare. One might lay the blame on the film’s North American distributor, Cineverse, for not utilizing social media to hype the movie’s release. There should be hype for Timur, right? Iko Uwais’ name is all over this thing, including the pre-credits logos for both his production company Uwais Pictures and his stunt team (Uwais Team, naturally), and I have to think the Indonesian actor still possesses a sizable following in the West. After all, he was the leading man for The Raid and The Raid 2, two movies that helped revive global interest in the martial arts genre and served as many viewers’ introduction to Indonesian cinema.

And guess what: you will think of The Raid early and often while watching Iko Uwais’ Timur. While the storyline here is loosely based on a real life hostage situation that occurred in Indonesia in 1996, the movie might be best described as ‘The Raid in the jungle.’ To the point that Timur also opens with Iko’s character saying farewell to his wife before departing on a mission…where he engages in combat alongside his fellow unit of black-clad soldiers…and has a secret objective to rescue his brother (adopted, in this case) who’s embedded in the bad guys’ forces. Would it shock you to learn that Iko and his brother (played by Aufa Assagaf) will have to team up to take down an out-of-control terrorist (Macho Hungan) who fights like a, um, mad dog?

Okay, so you’ll never quite shake the feeling of deja vu while watching Timur: I won’t criticize Iko too much for creatively treading familiar ground, as sometimes it’s an effective strategy to stick with a tried and true formula when striking out on your own as director for the first time. And on a technical level, I think Iko shows promise as a filmmaker: the production values and performances here prove solid. While The Raid had the benefit of taking place inside a confined environment, Timur must have offered its own particular challenges since it largely unfolds outdoors in the Indonesian jungle; yet the scale of the film consistently impresses with its numerous shots of military helicopters and ramshackle villages full of knife-wielding terrorist baddies.

Where Timur falters, however, is precisely where The Raid succeeded: in its pacing and action design. The fact that Iko’s character is out to rescue his adopted brother, who he hasn’t seen since childhood, leads to numerous dramatic flashbacks to said childhood, which often halt the urgency and momentum of the film’s ‘rescue the hostages’ plotline. You get what Iko is going for here—just think of all the Hong Kong action flicks that emphasize their characters’ childhood bonds in order to underline the tragedy of their strained relationships as adults—and he displays a knack for working with child actors, but the repeated flashbacks can feel like a drag, particularly when there’s not much action to be had in the first thirty minutes of Timur.

As for the action itself: the hand-to-hand combat and shootouts prove solid, if not as impactful as The Raid. (Hey, I know that’s a high bar to clear, but Iko is clearly setting up the comparison just by riffing so much on that 2011 Gareth Evans film). Part of the problem is that the shaky camera work often competes with the choreography itself, particularly during that aforementioned three-way fight scene. The Raid was a pioneer in the realm of making a handheld camera feel like it was part of a fight, but here the close-quarters sets and erratic camera movements tend to distract from the actors’ physical performances rather than embed the viewer in the action. As I’ve seen Contour and Death Grip star Eric Jacobus state on social media: ‘Not everything needs to be handheld.’ The prevalence of CG blood for both bullet and knife wounds can also be distracting but, let’s be real, not very many productions use good old-fashioned squibs for gunshots these days (unless you’re on a Jesse V. Johnson flick).

The action design here does display some innovation: the main new verb the stunt team plays with is the idea of a soldier being forced to use their rifle as a deflective weapon while being attacked by a machete or knife. It’s a cool technique and it happens often in Timur, though while watching Iko and his team bat away sharp blades with the barrel of their guns, I often had to ask: wouldn’t it make more sense to immediately create some distance between you and your opponent so you could, you know, shoot them? On the whole, I want to say I was more impressed by the action design in the Uwais Team’s other 2025 effort, Lone Samurai. Granted, I might just be saying that because that film benefitted from the screen presence and martial arts prowess of Mad Dog himself, Yayan Ruhian. There’s no getting around the fact that Ruhian’s energy is sorely missed on this outing.

Regardless, Iko Uwais deserves praise for Timur: for one thing, it can’t be easy to assemble a huge cast of pretend soldiers and terrorists and pull off a large-scale action flick—complete with military helicopters—in the middle of the Indonesian jungle, but that’s precisely what Iko has done. The credible performances and technical polish on display belie the fact that this is Iko’s debut behind the camera and suggest more good things to come. Yet with Timur’s frequent callbacks to fan favorite The Raid, I have to imagine many other viewers will share my sentiment that perhaps it’s time for Iko to break free from the legacy of that film and chart some new territory with his next project.

Z Ravas’ Rating: 6.5/10