MAYHEM! - Mark Reviews Movies

Mayhem!, IFC Films

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Review by Mark Dujsik | January 4, 2024

Here's proof, if any is needed, that a movie doesn't have to do anything new or unique to succeed. Everything about Mayhem! is blatantly familiar. Its protagonist is a man trying to escape but pulled back into his shadowy past. Its story is cobbled together of elements of a straightforward revenge tale and a rescue mission, set against the backdrop of an ugly criminal underworld. Co-writer/director Xavier Gens clearly knows he isn't making anything revolutionary, so the filmmaker instead focuses on giving us exactly what we expect and making the material as propulsive, brutal, and effective as he can.

Simply put, the film works. It gives us a flawed but relatable hero in Sam, a man who's released from prison for a day of parole in order to see if he's prepared for a potential period of probation. The character is played by Nassim Lyes, a former professional kickboxer in what might be his first leading role in a feature (Most of his credits are in French television and movies that haven't really crossed over to the United States).

From that description alone, one might think this story would amount to wall-to-wall action from the start, but Gens rightly sees the potential in his leading man for more than just pummeling assorted villains. The first hour or so of the film watches as Sam tries and, through no real fault of his own, fails to play it straight and on the up-and-up in a couple of versions of a new life.

Lyes portrays him as a man of quiet determination and a sense that he's haunted by the mistakes of his past, which keep coming back to punish him—no matter how hard he tries to change. It's a solid performance, even carrying through the backend of the film, when the actor's fighting talents are put on full display.

Sam's journey begins in Paris, after he's released for a day from prison, where he avoids getting caught up in a fight in the gym. All he's supposed to do is spend a shift a construction site, to see if it's a job he would take and if the boss thinks he would be a good fit, and the screenplay by the director and Magali Rossitto lures us into the possibilities of this story. Sam does well at the job, even helping a man who is injured and seems as if he might help Sam later on or something to return the favor, but there's potential conflict, too.

Immediately upon leaving the prison, Sam is confronted by a couple of guys on a motorcycle. They work for a local crime lord. Whatever Sam did to wind up in prison—or whatever he didn't do because he ended up there—has put him on this unseen man's bad side. Before his day away from incarceration is finished, Sam has had to run, fight back, and flee the country entirely.

The actual plot picks up five years later, after Sam has established a new life, a new name, and a new family in a fishing village in Thailand. He is married to Mia (Loryn Nounay), is a doting stepfather to Dara (Chananticha Chaipa), works at a fancy hotel, and fights in kickboxing matches, which he's willing to fix to make some money on the side.

Trying to legitimately buy some land on the beach so his wife can open a restaurant, Sam finds himself pressured to traffic drugs by French-born crime boss Narong (Olivier Gourmet). Things don't go according to plan, or better, they go exactly according to Narong's scheme.

Does any more of this plot need to be explained, especially with the notion that this becomes a revenge thriller already established? Yes, someone close to Sam is killed by Narong's thugs, led by his right-hand man Kasem (Yothin Udomsanti), and yes, someone else close to our protagonist is abducted by the villain. What's left for Sam, who's left for and presumed dead after the attack, to do, except to hunt down Kasem and Narong by searching some clubs, brothels, and drug distribution facilities in Thailand and beyond?

What happens isn't important. What is vital is the unstoppable momentum Gens provides this latter half or so of the film, which is driven by that primal urge to avenge one person and the necessity to save an innocent from a seemingly terrible fate. If Lyes is sympathetic in the early sections of the story, he's like a force of nature, possessed by the urge to do the only correct thing he knows how to do, in the extended third act. His eyes seem to transform into cold and calculated things here, focused exclusively on his goal and only momentarily on the various, multiple bad guys he has punch, kick, stab, and shoot along the way.

Lyes is properly intimidating in that mode, and Gens shoots the action sequences with respect for the physical skills of his leading man, as well as the stunt performers tussling with him. They also portray, in sometimes-grisly detail, what a blow, a twist, or a blade can do to assorted parts of the human body. If there is any element of surprise to the film, it's in those moments, such as the sudden and bloody exit of a secondary antagonist or a fight over a machete in the cramped space of an elevator, during which stabbed limbs are used as leverage.

It's grotesque and shocking at times, but importantly, Gens knows to use such violence as punctuation for fights that are choreographed, shot, and edited with skill and style. Mayhem! may not be doing much, but for what the film does, it's pretty successful.

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