Joe Lynch's very violent MAYHEM goes gleefully and crazily over the top

Ah, the workplace. Isn't it fun? We've just seen the French version, Corporate, via Nicolas Silhol, which gets a one-time run today in NYC at FIAF (until some smart distributor picks it up for further attention). Best of all, maybe, would be Joe Johnston's little gem from 2014, Not Safe for Work, a B-movie workplace thriller that gets everything right. Add now to your list of workplace goodies, MAYHEM, from Long Island filmmaker Joe Lynch, who a few years back gave us the the very tasty and so politically incorrect vengeance thriller, Everly, in which Salma Hayek strutted her very impressive stuff.

Now Mr. Lynch (shown at left) turns his attention to the corporate world and all (or much) of its malfeasance with his usual grin and copious squirts of the red stuff. Mayhem arrives at its titular state rather quickly, but prior to that it provides a bit of exposition regarding a new virus that has arrived to give humanity ever more problems. Thankfully (and a good deal more creatively) this virus does not turn folk into zombies.

Rather, once infected, the host's eyes turn red and he (or she) loses all inhibitions, becoming ultra-violent, ultra-horny and ultra-, well, just about any naughty thing you might be able to imagine. (One of the film's funnier moments has to do with emptying wastebaskets.)

So when our hero, Derek (played by a fine and feisty Steven Yeun, shown above and below, pre- and post-mayhem), who has risen to a higher rank in the corporate world by becoming an ever-better shit-heel, even if (as we note in an early scene) he has not yet lost quite all of his humanity, is suddenly made the fall guy for the mistakes of others, he plots revenge on his "horrible bosses."

Along for the ride is a pretty young woman named Melanie (Samantha Weaving, above, right, and below), who has come to the corporation to plead with it not to evict her from her family home -- the mortgage of which the corporation now owns. When the virus infects the building, including our sort-of good guy and gal, and the corporation headquarters is quarantined, the opportunity arises to redress certain grievances.

Among the numerous villains are some very fine actors playing people who've been given just enough specific and nasty qualities that each is enable to endow his/her character with some lip-smacking fun via a clever, on-target performance.

These would include the estimable Kerry Fox (at extreme left, above) as the corporate dragon lady, and Stephen Brand (above, front and center) as the would-be fellow in charge. Ms Fox is always a treat to see, and she nails it once again in this juicy supporting role.

Also on tap is the very hot actress, Caroline Chikezie (center left), as the firm's lower-level dragon lady known as The Siren, who provides a lot of nasty, sexy fun. As the violence escalates (it's all pretty cartoonish, from which the recipients keep rising up again and again) and our heroes make their way to the "top," things get dicier, funnier and ever more actionful.

It may seem odd to describe a movie this bloody and violent as an enjoyable romp, but given what keeps unfurling in the real world about our corporate culture and its negative impact upon us all, I suppose we can be forgiven for indulging in a little fantasy payback now and again, especially when it is this inventively staged. So thank you, Mr. Lynch. And keep up the good work.

From RLJE Films and running a swift 86 minutes, Mayhem opens this Friday, November 10, in theaters, via VOD and digital high def. In Los Angeles you can view it at Laemmle's Monica Film Center, in New York City at the Cinema Village, and at the other eight cities/theaters listed below: Atlanta/AMC Conyers Crossing 16, Dallas/AMC Hickory Creek, Houston/AMC Yorktown, San Francisco/AMC Deer Valley, Phoenix/AMC Arizona Center, Chicago/AMC Woodridge, Detroit/ AMC Gratiot and Tampa/AMC Sundial. 

DVD/Blu-ray Debut: Mads Mikkelsen in Kristian Levring's THE SALVATION

Revenge is sour, nasty and jumps back and forth between a couple of agrieved parties in THE SALVATION, the latest movie from Danish director Kristian Levring. One of those parties is a real shitheel of a man, however, so there's certainly no contest regarding for whom you're gonna root. Which also makes for little irony or surprise along the way. This is a kind of High Noon for folk who like a lot of violence and killing, a little sex, and a cast far too good for what's up there on screen. (What's up there actually looks quite good -- in Blu-ray, at least: crack cinematography, editing, sound design, and all the other technical specs.)

Almost any movie starring Mads Mikkelsen is worth a watch, and The Salvation is no exception. There's a lot to like here but litttle to love, as we've seen it all before, though the plot on parade has been cobbled together pretty well (the screenplay is by Levring and Anders Thomas Jensen) and is acted even better by a first-rate cast that includes Eva Green as a mute, mysterious good-time gal and Jeffrey Dean Morgan as that very naughty bad guy.

After awhile, however, you can easily tell who'll go down and who'll survive. So all the violence and killing, while necessary plot-wise, begins to take its toll on your patience. From IFC Films and running just 92 minutes, the movie hits DVD and Blu-ray this coming Tuesday, August 4, for sale and/or rental.

APACHES and TO KILL A MAN: Two from Film Movement to make their DVDebut next week

Usually TrustMovies uses Thanksgiving Day to highlight one of the year's top turkeys. But since he's already posted on Interstellar (and, really, it's not that bad), and the "promised-to-cover-them" films are piling up faster than he can manage, he'll spend today's post on a couple of interesting movies about to make their DVDebut from Film Movement: one worth seeing and the other a tad iffy. APACHES occupies the latter category, being one of those movies about really dumb teenagers at work and (mostly) play, as well as being about the island of Corsica, which would of course include everything from Colonialism to class, race, religion, gender, tourism and most of the rest of the usual check-list.

There is evidently a large influx of Muslim immigrants to Corsica, as throughout much of the rest of Europe, and while this movie covers them, it does them no favors. Though, in truth, everyone we see in this film seems pretty close to worthless: kids, adults, French, Corsicans, Italians, immigrants -- you name 'em, and you (and the world) could easily do without 'em. Apaches is one of those more and more oft-seen movies that would seem to predict the coming apocalypse via the behavior of their dumb-as-they-come characters. You watch awhile, and before long you're murmuring, "No wonder the world is coming to its end...."

The story simply follows a two-man immigrant cleaning crew at a very expensive house on the island, one of whom returns later with friends to make use of the house for fun. Some of the friends also use it for sex, drinking, vomiting and burglary -- and it's the last of those that makes for the most difficulties.

Before long we're knee-deep in fear, betrayal, murder, and perhaps the silliest bleach job in the history of motion picture hair (I told you these kids were dumb). The performances are certainly as real as you could want, the direction (by Thierry de Peretti) and writing (by de Peretti and actor Benjamin Baroche) are adequate (I do wonder why the use of the old-fashioned ratio of 1.33 : 1?). So. Is this movie believable? Absolutely. Is it worth watching or caring about? Barely.

The second film under consideration, TO KILL A MAN, is no less unsettling but a lot more interesting. It is being billed as revenge story. But it actually is not. Instead it shows us what happens when the father of the family (living apart but still clearly concerned with the well-being of his ex and his kids) comes up against a genuinely nasty, sociopath, criminal type who will not stop harassing the family. Add to this mix a police department and judicial system that, for whatever reason, refuses to provide any real help or protection. You can't watch this film without finally wondering, "What would I do under these circumstances?"

The movie, from Chile and written and directed by Alejandro Fernández Almendras,  is anything but a revenge thriller. It's not even a thriller, exactly, because it seems far too real for that. (It's based on a true story, which we don't learn until the film's conclusion, but which is quite easy to believe.) We follow our "hero," Jorge (very well played by Daniel Candia, above and below), in both thought and deed as tension builds to the breaking point and beyond.

We see enough of both the man's family and the villain and his crowd to be able to easily take sides, and I suspect that very few viewers will be able to insist on any simple-minded Thou Shalt Not Kill platitude where this story is concerned. If Jorge were a large and powerful guy, the movie could easily begin to take on some Hollywood gloss. But, no: Instead he's on the short side and running to flab. And he doesn't want to become this avenger; he's pushed into it by circumstance-- via  the actions of the sociopath and the wretched security of the state.

Filmmaker Almendras doesn't let his hero (or us) off the hook, either, as a Hollywood movie would have done. This makes his film all that much more frustrating -- and fulfilling. You can see both these movies, beginning this coming Tuesday, December 2, on DVD and streaming via their distributor Film Movement  -- for sale or rental. If history is any guide, they'll be available via Netflix and Amazon soon, as well.

BAD WORDS: Jason Bateman & Andrew Dodge's deft/funny take on revenge and the spelling bee

What a continuing and unfolding 33-year-and-counting career belongs to Jason Bateman! The actor, shown at right, who began that career mostly doing TV work, graduated to movies and now divides his time between them, while expanding into production and -- with his latest film BAD WORDS -- film direction, too. Because he so often plays the more-or-less straight man to the "star" (from Will Smith in Hancock, in which Bateman's character became the heart of the movie, to Melissa McCarthy in Identity Thief for whom the actor made a perfect foil, allowing the comedienne to seem all the funnier, just as Sandra Bullock did for McCarthy in The Heat), Bateman consistently keeps things real, thus allowing his co-stars to go over-the-top without toppling the particular movie (or TV show: see Arrested Development).

Bad Words is an especially auspicious directorial debut, I think, because Mr. Bateman shows such a deft hand in delivering laughs that often come from awfully nasty places yet manage not to alienate us. This movie is not, I should add, some over-the-top schlock-fest of bad behavior like the Hangover series. Instead those nasty laughs are also witty and pointed, even if their inappropriateness rather takes our breath away. Bateman's deft handiwork continues into the fine perfor-mances he coaxes from each cast member, including himself.

The story here has to do with an adult male named Guy Trilby played by Bateman, who, due to a loophole in a national spelling bee competition, is able to compete along with the usual kids. Why he would want to do such a thing is the mystery that fuels much of the movie. How he does it provides the many laughs that regularly dot this fleet and sour 88-minute comedy. (The very name Trilby may push the Svengali button in some of us older viewers, but in this case, Bateman's character is a Trilby and Svengali rolled into one.)

Along for the ride (because Trilby needs her journalistic bona fides, and she needs his "boner" fides, so to speak) is a young woman named Jenny, who has quite the atypical relationship with her subject. Jenny is played by Kathryn Hahn (above and recently of Afternoon Delight), and she's a delight all over again here). Jenny and Guy match each other super-quirk for super-quirk.

The kids are differentiated only so far as they need to be, with the exception of one singular contestant, a boy named Chaitanya, played with near-amazing focus and belief by Rohan Chand (above). The relationship that forms between Guy and Chaitanya is yet another surprising, funny-by-way-of-shocking development that ought to raise our eyebrows but instead keeps tickling our funny bone.

How do Bateman and the talented first-time screenwriter of Bad Words, Andrew Dodge (shown at right), manage to have their cake and eat it, too -- creating such a nasty character who does awful stuff yet still holds us through to the the conclusion. Part of the reason, I think, has to do with the very idea of the modern spelling bee and what it has come to stand for -- so far as pushy, insistent parents and pompously ugly administrators of the bee are concerned. Bateman and Dodge never overtly state this, but the way the film unfolds, you can't help but root for someone to take the whole thing down. It's a part of American culture (and perhaps that of the larger western-world) that needs a good lickin'. Which it gets.

Bateman is on record as saying that, while the movie is, yes, kind of filthy, it still has a feel-good finale. While this is true, one reason the finale works so well is that the filmmakers don't push that feel-good one tiny bit. Something happens, yes. And someone is brought up short. But that's it. The movie doesn't dwell. And so we can exit the theater laughing still, with the reason for the dirty deeds and the crassness managing to temper these without giving in to abject sentimentality. This makes for quite the graceful resolution.

In the crack supporting cast are Allison Janney, Philip Baker Hall (below) and Beth Grant, as three of those above-mentioned administrators, and each does her/his thing with the usual aplomb. As indies go, Bad Words, I suspect, is going to be a boffo hit, reaching well into that coveted mainstream audience and delivering a welcome wallop -- as well as a very good time at the movies.

After hitting the Toronto and SxSW fests, Bad Words -- from Focus Features -- has its theatrical debut in New York City this Friday, March 14, at the AMC Lincoln Square, AMC Village 7 and Regal's E-Walk. In Los Angeles, the film, also opening this Friday, will play the Pacific Arclight, Hollywood; The Landmark, West L.A.; and the AMC Century City. Look for a national expansion to all major cities in the weeks to come.

MUD is Jeff Nichols' best -- a story of love (many kinds) featuring a terrific ensemble

MUD sneaks up on you: A compilation of smart, real moments that turn into impressive scenes, with characters that expand and grow into full-bodied people who delight, alarm and surprise you. Somewhere along the way, you'll also realize that there has not been a false moment on view and that, yes, this movie may be something quite special. Mud does not disappoint.

What surprised TrustMovies most -- after seeing Nichols' other films: Shotgun Stories and Take Shelter, which were interesting but appeared too deliberately diffuse and, in the case of the latter, with-holding -- is how straight-ahead and on-track Nichols (shown at left) keeps his tale, without ever making it simple-minded. The filmmaker's command of his material has taken a huge leap, while the material itself has grown in scope and importance. The year is young, but I will not be at all surprised to find this movie on a number of "Best" lists, come late December. So accessible and moving is Mud that great word-of-mouth could easily take this independent film into mainstream territory.

Nichols' setting is again the south, but his ensemble has increased noticeably, beginning with the two mid-teenage boys who ground the movie and their introduction to the title character, played -- in yet another smashingly good performance -- by Matthew McConaughey (above). Last year this actor kept surprising us over and over -- Bernie, Killer Joe, Magic Mike, The Paperboy -- and this year looks to be no different. McConaughey appears to have found his muse, his pace, his place; his performance here is rich, moving, sometimes funny and always real.

The movie combines the coming-of-age theme with a great love story. But not just a love story. No: Mud lets us view love in so many forms in all kinds of ways: man/woman, boy/girl, father/son, mother/son, mentor/student -- and especially of the unrequited variety. Because Nichols and his cast have found a way to make all these loves meaningful and important -- even the chief villain (a nice turn by the seldom-seen Joe Don Baker) and his love for his sons is allowed a bit of our sympathy and understanding -- the movie never stops resonating.

As the love object that sets the plot in motion, Reese Witherspoon is initially almost unrecognizable. She's excellent, as usual, in a role that's unusual for this actress. (In fact, her character seems not far out of line with Witherspoon's recent altercation vis-a-vis the Atlanta police department.)

The filmmaker has always been adept at getting his cast to deliver fine performances, and his work with the two boys to whom the film most belongs is sterling. As Ellis, the boy we learn most about, Tye Sheridan (above, left, and below) is as memorable here as he was not so in the diddling Tree of Life. Ditto Jacob Lofland (above, right), in his debut as Neckbone, a boy we learn less about but for whom the actor does wonderful, moment-to-moment work. These are the best performances by kids that I have seen in a long while.

In the supporting cast are a number of fine actors, beginning with Nichols' regular Michael Shannon, who plays Neckbone's deep-river diving uncle, a character who, the first time we see him after a sexual contretemps, appears to be rather a schmuck. Again, Nichols and his actor gives us enough layers of behavior and caring that we're soon on this guy's side.

Ellis' parents, struggling and angry, are played by Sarah Paulson (above) and Ray McKinnon (below), both of whom are splendid, adding yet another difficult and important love story to the mix.

In the role of Mud's mentor, Sam Shepard (below) brings his usual gravity and low-keyed wit to the proceedings. Love, betrayal, revenge, understanding -- they're all here and mixed to precisely the right degree to approximate life in its complexity. Mud, my movie-loving friends, is a must-see.

The film, from both Lionsgate and Roadside Attractions and running 130 minutes (it seems shorter), opens this Friday, April 26, in New York City (at AMC's Lincoln Square 13 and Village VII, and at Clearview's 1st & 62nd) -- and elsewhere, I'm sure, though I can find no listing of playdates currently.

DEAD MAN DOWN: Niels Arden Oplev's American directing debut proves a winner

So who is Niels Arden Oplev? Remember The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo? No, no: the original version. That's right: this guy directed it. And very well, too. Not up to Fincher level, for sure, but profession-ally, intelligently and with a good eye for the visuals. Now, after polishing off a few episodes of the American TV show Unforgettable, he's back with his first real American movie, a nifty, twisty, neo-noir thriller fueled by the need for revenge -- and titled DEAD MAN DOWN.

In both these films (which are the only examples of his work that I've seen), Mr. Oplev, shown at left, combines a flair for action set-pieces, the kind of smart pacing that good thrillers need, strong visuals, crackerjack editing -- and a case for female empowerment. Immeasurably helping that last subject is the star of both movies, Noomi Rapace. This rather special Swedish actress (shown below), who combines beauty and vulnerability with a strong personality and the willingness to try very different roles, here plays a young woman named Beatrice, disfigured via an accident and its repercussions, who is now seeking out a little revenge on the drunk driver who caused it.

The instrument of that revenge is none other than Victor, played by another good actor, the oft-seen-of-late Colin Farrell (below), whose compact, muscular and very sexy little body, coupled to his ability to communicate sensitivity, provides the perfect complement to Rapace's buried beauty and angry vulnerability. These two make a wonderful couple, and the manner in which screenwriter J. H. Wyman and Oplev place them together and let them slowly fuss and fizz goes a long way toward bringing the audience into the movie in a humane and believable manner.

Victor, you see, is a kind of assassin who works for crime sub-kingpin (wouldn't that make him a princepin, or maybe a dukepin?) Terrence Howard, shown below. More than this you should not know going into the movie, for it is full of small surprises that entertain, even as they keep you on your toes.

Also in this mix is Victor's best friend, played by Dominic Cooper (below, left) and -- here's a surprise treat -- Isabelle Huppert as Beatrice's mom, who's a bit hard-of-hearing but enjoys cooking. Huppert adds some lovely class and a little humor to what is basically quite a noir-ish stew, the ingredients of which include family, loss, betrayal, revenge and love.

The movie works as well as it does, I think, due to its excellent construction, in which the initial scene -- an odd but very interesting one -- connects so thoroughly and emotionally with the film's through-line right up to and including its final scene. The morality here is complicated and difficult, and the situations of both hero and heroine are particularly sad.

Farrell and Rapace (above and below) bring genuine chemistry and emotional appeal to their roles, and the supporting cast, for the most part, are properly nasty so that we can watch them die without squirming overly much. Yet this is no Tarrantino kill-fest; Oplex never lingers over the ghastly or the gore. Instead this is a wonderfully satisfying crime-noir melodrama -- perhaps the best in the last decade since that unusually fine French film, Chaos.

From Film District and running a surprisingly lengthy but never overlong 110 minutes, Dead Man Down opens today, Friday, March 8, at theaters everywhere. To find those closest to you, simply click here, and then click on GET TICKETS AND SHOWTIMES.

PAYBACK: Jennifer Baichwal's film of the book by Margaret Atwood explores debt, revenge and restitution -- from Albania to Florida tomato-pickers and the Gulf oil spill

How good to have -- in the midst of our monthly (if not weekly) documen-taries on the dire state of the planet Earth, so far as continued life for human beings is concerned -- a new one, PAYBACK, that is actually artful in its combination and use of subject matter and methodology. We might expect as much from Jennifer Baichwal, the woman who earlier gave us Act of God (the struck-by-lightning movie), Manufactured Landscapes (a documentary in which TrustMovies was somewhat disappointed) and the bizarre-but-eye-opening, not exactly a bio-doc Let It Come Down: The Life of Paul Bowles.

Ms Baichwal's method (the filmmaker is shown at right) is usually to come at her subject sidelong so that we're into it eventually but not perhaps in quite the way we would have initially imagined. Here she takes Ms Atwood's words literally, having the author speak to us from readings she gave in her original 2008 Massey Lecture Series or, more impromptu, sitting in her home and speaking quietly to the camera. That this does not last long is all to the good for Ms Atwood, as fine a writer as she is, is not much of a speaker. She tends to drone, so the little bit we hear is plenty.

What Ms Atwood (shown above) has to say, however, is urgent, thoughtful and well worth hearing and wrestling with. So Ms Baichwal gives this to us via talking heads (like the disgraced and formerly imprisoned Canadian media mogul Conrad Black, below)

and laboring bodies (the men, below, who pick tomatoes for a large Florida-based company). Prisons and prison life are also explored -- from the point of view of a wealthy man like Mr. Black and what he experienced, as well as from that of an immigrant/repeat offender.

In her most moving segments, Baichwal goes out to a man in prison, a drug addict who, as soon as he gets out of stir, goes right back to the same drugs and crime -- and so ends up behind bars again. His lament and sorrow for the pain he has caused an old woman whom he robbed (he tells us she was even a Holocaust survivor) seems hugely like a payback of sorts.

The filmmaker treks down to our gulf states to explore the left-overs from the BP oil catastrophe (above), and we hear from Casi Callaway of Mobile Baykeeper about the damages (some of them-- the use of chemical dispersants -- made worse by BP's post-spill actions). The film also spends a good deal of time in Albania, showing us the ongoing ramifications of a blood feud (this will seem very familiar to those who've recently viewed The Forgiveness of Blood) between families, one member of which is shown below. As usual, Baichwal seems less interested in any hard and fast investigation or where the truth might lie than in an even-handed plea for understanding between the participants. Good luck.

Early on, Ms Atwood takes the old cliché that crime does not pay, and tweaks it into something more meaningful to the times in which we now live: Crime does not pay its debt to society. Until it does, until it is forced to do so, we're on a downhill path away from justice and the necessary social good, and into... I shudder to ponder this.

A cynical friend of mine once told me that the entire history of civilization can be reduced to three words: Slaughter for tchotchkes. The still from the movie, above, reminded me of this idea and then of the documentary's choice of debt examples: political, moral, spiritual and financial. (I wish more time had been spent on the idea of the many ways that debt plays into the world's current financial crisis, but I guess Ms Baichwal's time and/or choices were limited, or perhaps Ms Atwood did not cover this subject at any length in her lectures or book.)

In any case, Payback (85 minutes, from Zeitgeist Films) opens this Wednesday, April 25, in New York City at Film Forum. (Click here for screening times and/or to purchase tickets). To see other currently scheduled playdates for the film, with cities and theaters, simply click here.

Note: Both Atwood and Baichwal will be making personal appearances at Film Forum on opening day, April 25, at the following screenings:  6:30pm and 8:20pm. In addition, Ms Baichwal will appear in person on Thursday, April 26, at the 8:20 screening.

All photos are from the film itself, 

except that of Ms Baichwal, which 

comes courtesy of The Walrus Magazine.