Bullet Points: Mayhem

Whether you have noticed or not, Director Joe Lynch is a pretty good follow on Twitter and one hell of a filmmaker. My personal favorite of his would be when he turned Salma Hayek into a pure badass in Everly, but if you haven’t yet watched the hilarious Knights of Badassdom then you’re already missing out. Lynch is among this new breed of director who has honed his skills behind the camera shooting all sorts of gory and gratuitously violent stuff. He’s a man after my own heart. This time he takes a shot at one of the truest forms of evil; corporate America.

Synopsis: Derek Cho (Steven Yeun) is having a really bad day. After being unjustly fired from his job, he discovers that the law firm’s building is under quarantine for a mysterious and dangerous virus. Chaos erupts throughout the office as the victims of the disease begin acting out their wildest impulses. Joining forces with a former client (Samara Weaving) who has a grudge of her own, Derek savagely fights tooth and nail to get to the executives on the top floor and settle the score once and for all.

• Cover Your Mouth: Mayhem starts off with a narration by star Steven Yeun giving us a rundown of this horrible virus that has been popping up around the world. Despite its fancy science-name, it really just causes the person to lose all inhibitions and naturally people get extremely violent and try to bang each other. Sounds pretty legit to me. We’re not exactly told how it spreads but it doesn’t appear to be deadly. Unless, of course, someone stabs you in the neck with your own ink pen.
• Cho-sen: Derek Cho works for the law firm that originally got the first murderer infected with the virus off the hook. You see, Derek is a master at finding loopholes in the system. He’s the type of guy that everyone needs as a friend because he’s quick on his feet and doesn’t give up without a fight. All that comes in handy when he’s set up by his superior at work and expected to take the fall for a major screw up within the firm. They offer him a butt-load of money to fall in the metaphorical grenade but he’s soon infected with the virus and would much rather toss a literal grenade at them instead.

• The Red Eye: Once the virus starts spreading the office turns into a pretty wild place. People are fighting each other in one corner and then screwing in the cubicle next door. The effect of the virus tends to be very specific to each person as some, like Derek and his new friend Melanie (Samara Weaver), turn out to be filled to the brim with unhinged violence while others prefer to just curse at each other loudly. Both make for an entertaining day at the office but only one of them makes the front page of the paper.
• The Man in the Penthouse: The bossman at the law firm decides pretty quickly that eliminating Derek during this whole ordeal would be the best way to take care of the situation. There is already a precedent for people not being punished for killing while infected with “the Red Eye Virus” so they could expect to be let off Scott free when the quarantine is lifted. As you can expect, Cho doesn’t sit by meekly while he’s being executed in the basement and instead decides to climb his way to the top floor, doing battle with various corporate henchmen along the way. Do I see a little bit of Game of Death in here? I sure do. If only we could have gotten a Kareem Abdul Jabar cameo as the IT guy.

• Samara Rules: I hadn’t seen Samara Weaving before Mayhem but I’m certainly going to check out some of her other work now. She is easily one of the coolest characters in the movie. Between her spit fight with Yeun to her nail-gun marksmanship, Weaving nearly steals the show in every scene that she’s in. If Steven Yeun wasn’t so likable as an actor then he might have been overshadowed by the lovely Aussie.

A movie like this deserves just a few Bonus Bullet Points:

• I hope my last words aren’t “I smell toast”.
• The Red Eye Virus causes everyone to revert back to their junior high status of aggressive dry-humping.
• I’ve been pepper sprayed before (long story) but I’ve never had it sprayed directly into my mouth and then spit it into someone’s eyes. Not yet, at least.
• Apparently the video of the couple having sex in the background was real. The two were in a real relationship and were really doing it. Good for them!
• This dude really loves cocaine.