In a twisted social experiment, 80 Americans are locked in their high-rise corporate office in Bogotá, Colombia and ordered by an unknown voice coming from the company's intercom system to participate in a deadly game of kill or be killed.
"Your task
is simply this: kill three of your coworkers or we will kill six others."
If you only know James Gunn's as
co-writer and director of The Gaurdians of the Galaxy (and the
up-coming GotG Vol. 2), then you might find his involvement in The
Belko Experiment surprising.
If you know James Gunn wrote the
Dawn of the Dead remake,and The Specials, and directed Super &
Slither, then you are completely unsurprised. It has his fingerprints
all over it!
The Belko Experiment is a violent,
brutal, and bloody movie (see Red band trailer above!) with moments of dark humor(the music choices
especially). Its smartest feature is putting you in the position of
all the characters: would you kill someone, especially one you know,
to save more lives? You question everyone's decisions, and force
yourself to wonder how you'd get on.
Gunn and director Greg
McClean move quickly to establish the people and relationships in the
building, from maintenance staff and food service up to middle
management and officers of this branch (there's more than one...). I
especially liked the fact that one of the characters is staring their
first day! Once we get the players and landscape set, it just GOES!
At 88 minutes, The Belko Experiment is a lean and mean movie.
There a good mix of actors both known
(Tony Goldwyn, John C McGinley, Michael Rooker), up-and-comers (Adria
Arjona, John Gallagher Jr.), and less-known (Brent Sexton, Sean Gunn)
to keep you wondering who's going to change and who's going to end up
dead. The are several great turns of characters going in directions
we don't expect, as well as meeting fates that are
unexpected.
That's where it loses me, near the end.
The
final people left fighting each other are far too telegraphed early
in the film for my taste. There are several ways and characters that
are either more “worthy” or would have been more interesting to
end up having to battle to the death. For a movie that's spent the
rest of the time being smart and subversive about who lives and dies, the final battle ended fairly obvious to me.
Unless I'm just a horrible
person, just waiting for my chance to fight my co-workers to the
death?
Which is possible...
I'm sure The Belko Experiment will get to be a cult
favorite when it hits Blu and streaming.
When that happens, might
I suggest a double feature with Office Space?
NOTE: There is no post-credits scene.
