Joe Lynch’s “Mayhem” is one of those movies that captures the stress of modern capitalism through genre tropes and gruesome movie violence. We like this sort of thing, but it’s a bit dumb, no? Lynch is a modern exploitation expert by now, and even if I hadn’t seen his earlier work, I’d recognize his approach from “Everly”, a gruesome, no-budget Salma Hayek thriller which I watched with the other guys during sleepy SyFy Channel afternoons. This guy loves to just completely obliterate people. I have mixed feelings about this.
Steven Yeun, who at the time hadn’t yet been Oscar nominated nor had he received the Hollywood anointment of dropping out of a Marvel movie, here plays a relatively well-compensated office drone. Unless I missed something (entirely possible), he doesn’t seem like one of those heroes who is broke and dealing with eviction in spite of a hard-working lifestyle. Rather, he’s the more common type - the guy who’s doing well, but nonetheless is stuck at the ass end of what his company wishes to celebrate. Promotion escapes him at the law firm where he toils, where they turned him from the latest entry in the rat race to someone who only hopes to climb over the inadequacies and failures of others. He’s not here to make friends.
Yeun is also the guy that found the legal loophole within the film’s own sci-fi premise. “Mayhem” is just one of many pre-2020 films with an eerie virus subplot, here depicted as a condition that causes people to fulfill their own darkest impulses. When one man commits murder under the influence of the sickness, Yeun’s law firm is able to exonerate him due to violent urges being a side effect of this disease. Implicit in “Mayhem” is the assumption, one that makes me feel old, that we all secretly want to physically hurt one another.
Through a series of office machinations, Yeun is made a fall guy and forced to accept blame for an office screwup. Unwilling to be a patsy for someone else’s miscue, he is fired. And, convenient to the plot, the building goes on lockdown. Seems that virus that is feeding our darker demons has seeped into the airstream. And now Yeun has all the motivation he needs to cut a bloody swath through upper management. Which is to say, revenge tastes great, but survival in this scenario is also a succulent meal.
In the midst of all this, well, it’s in the title, is Samara Weaving. I am largely catching up with this beautiful Australian actress who has developed a solid foothold on mid-level stardom over the last few years. While in prison, I was charmed by her goofy appearance in “Bill And Ted Face The Music” (less so her unconvincing franchise turn as Scarlet in “Snake Eyes”). And while in the halfway house, I stepped out to watch her unwise career decision to get nuked out of orbit by fellow gorgeous blonde Aussie Margot Robbie in their scenes in “Babylon”. You’d have to have seen that movie to get that, but luckily for Weaving, no one has.
When Weaving attracts the virus, her wild eyed charisma takes center stage. She builds an alliance with Yeun, and the two of them proceed to punch, stab and slice through a series of batty suit-and-tie types. Yeun is playing a fellow who is both competitive and a little lame, someone who measures his masculinity against men he nonetheless loathes, and his nerdiness genuine. His testament to Dave Matthews Band is one of the more genuine examples of a screenwriter letting a character geek out about dorky minutiae so it sounds like something a real person would say. This brief respite from the violence helps endear him to Weaving, the latter of whom is otherwise taking down victims with a wide-eyed insanity that ultimately gives the slackened second half of the film some oomph.
I don’t have the same zest for this stuff I once did. I had been in as many fights as the next guy before prison – maybe a little more, but not to an extreme extent. But in the real world, when you throw down, it’s a counterpoint to the real world. There’s the suggestion that, whatever you do, the real world will interrupt you, saving you and/or the other guy. You’re getting away with something. In prison, fights are just another part of the narrative, a natural extension of the tension that began to build as soon as you woke up. No one is trying to make peace. They’re either trying to add to the violence, or they’re all going to sit back and watch.
“Mayhem” draws its entertainment shock value from everyone coming for each other with violence on their tongue, every single man for themselves. Which is both visually appealing and wishful thinking, really. In prison, there are no fair fights. Single guys aren’t circling each other, ready to throw down. If it’s a one-on-one clash, it's because there is a predator and a prey. More often than not, you will be jumped, in a vulnerable position, by several men. Some may have weapons, but they’re not going to let you get your bearings. And unlike in most action films, they’re not going to attack you one at a time.
I saw this happen, a number of times. And then once, it happened to me, one night after midnight, as I was yanked out of bed and beat as if I’d bust apart, dissolving into gold coins. The damage was repaired eventually – a bilateral jaw fracture, my mouth cracked open in two places. But the prison took nineteen days to provide surgery that requires treatment within 48-72 hours. So they had to break my jaw again in order to properly fix it, as it had already begun to heal back crooked.
Yes, it was all fixed, and I am more or less back to normal. But what prepares you for that moment? The moment you become a punching bag, an extra in someone else’s action movie, battered and bruised and broken, robbed of all agency? Where you are in darkness, in bed, foolishly assured of your safety, only to be mangled, to allow your blood to squirt forth from your face like an errant fountain? I’ve spent years trying and failing to find peace within that moment, which has been repeating in my head for years now. It is not fear, but rather, preparedness, the idea that you can never stop looking over your shoulder. Even when you have left prison, and you are home alone, and your neighbors are not home.
“Mayhem” is the fun version of that. I’m not sure about having a “fun version” of such experiences.
There's a more recent movie with the same title from Xavier Gens that's also pretty good.