Mayhem (2017)


Working in an office is hell.  Office Space went over that wonderfully, and still remains the pinnacle of office comedies - even above, say, The Office.  While the customers sometimes are a major annoyance - AT&T was that way because a good portion of bored people saw it as their own personal telephonic amusement park in the 1990s - the biggest problem is dealing with a bunch of adults that never understood that high school is over.  And, no, this is not going to be a rant about Millennials or Gen Z.  A good portion of my generation, and the ones above, never evolved.

I was hoping Mayhem, since it takes place in what is already a hostile work environment, would take the time to make fun of this situation more than it does.  The idea of introducing a virus that, while not deadly, causes everyone to act uncontrollably on their baser emotions is interesting.  Putting a bunch of workers that already don't want to be there under quarantine for eight hours while it runs its course is also interesting.  What director Joe Lynch does with Matias Caruso's script is only mildly so. 

Derek Cho (Steven Yeun) is a lawyer in a major firm called Towers Smythe Consulting, or TSC for short.  The virus was a boon to him as he found a loophole for one of the firm's clients shortly after the virus, called ID-7, causes a man to kill one of his coworkers, setting the standard that those under the influence of the virus are not culpable for illegal acts they might do.  Unfortunately, Derek is also one of the guys in the middle of the rung, so when one of the more ambitious lawyers, Cara (Caroline Chikezie) messes up a file for one of the company's major corporate clients, she is able to use Derek as a scapegoat and make him look bad in front of their boss, John Towers (Steven Brand).  

While Derek is being walked out by security the building is quarantined as monitors installed by the CDC detect a release of the virus.  Soon everyone in the building is going mad, destroying property and acting out on petty squabbles and grudges as well as sexual urges.  Derek, after threatening Towers, is locked up with Melanie (Samara Weaving), a homeowner who had come to him earlier in the day asking for help on a foreclosure.  With a number of tools stolen from a maintenance shed the two escape and begin their climb through the building's corporate ranks to get to Towers.

Despite the fact that some extras decided to have a little couple time for real in the background, Mayhem is a tame movie.  One wouldn't be able to tell from what is seen whether it's fake or real, but the premise doesn't really promise much in the way of sexcapades.  Rather it promises wall-to-wall blood in an office environment with swipes against corporate structure, bad management and a situation in which the underdog prevails.  On the gore side there is not much for a movie like this, especially a horror comedy, and much of what there could have been seems neutered as if Lynch was intentionally going for an R rating.  The cover has Steven Yeun with blood all over him and Samara Weaving with a nail gun, which we do get briefly here and there, but never to the level this movie needs.

While there are some swipes at badly run corporations the greater part of the story involves what is pretty much a video game plot.  Derek and Melanie start at the bottom, overcome by a future boss, and begin working their way up through levels toward different bosses that put up bigger fights until our hero is set to meet the final boss on his own.  The reason this movie does work as mere entertainment is because Yeun and Weaving have decent chemistry, while Caroline Chikezie, Kerry Fox and Steven Brand all play such slimy caricatures of the worst office denizens that one looks forward to seeing their demise.  Unfortunately, only one is shown meeting it on-screen - again, anything that would have put the movie as over-the-top as it needed to be seems to have either not been filmed or left on the cutting room floor.  Though I liked a good portion of the movie this tendency to pull away at crucial moments was a major disappointment.  

Mayhem (2017)
Time: 86 minutes
Starring: Steven Yeun, Samara Weaving, Steven Brand, Caroline Chikezie
Director: Joe Lynch

 

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