‘Mayhem!’ Needs Much More Violence to Live Up to Its Title
Action movie insanity has escalated so deliriously during the past decade-plus—thanks to everything from Gareth Evans’ The Raid and Chad Stahelski’s John Wick to Jung Byung-gil’s The Villainess and Carter—that the bar is now set at absurd heights. To wow audiences currently requires a massive degree of over-the-top choreographic madness, and it’s that peak which Mayhem! strives to reach. A French import (in theaters and on VOD Jan. 5) which is primarily set in Thailand and assumes that country’s particular Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior-esque style of bruising combat, it takes its time—quite frankly, too long—to deliver the gruesome goods. When they arrive, however, they’re of a suitably gnarly sort, highlighted by the sight of a lone warrior stabbing an adversary to death with a broken forearm bone that’s protruding through his skin.
In Paris, Sam (Nassim Lyes) is in prison for a vague drug charge that’s only cursorily mentioned, the better to establish him as an uncomplicated good guy just trying to get himself back on track. On a day of leave, he receives a tryout at a construction job and nails the gig. Unfortunately, despite things looking up for Sam, he’s still being hunted by his past—literally, as on his way to and from the penitentiary, he’s hounded by motorcycle thugs who spit and scream at him about his ongoing debt to criminal overlord Farhat, who’ll remain, throughout, just a spectral name. In the second of these two confrontations, Sam takes off into an abandoned building, hoping to flee these anonymous pursuers. Instead, he winds up in a violent scuffle with one thug, whom he fatally kicks off an upper-floor ledge.
Five years later, Sam is living in Bang Chan, Thailand, where he’s first seen hauling in catches with local fishermen even though, as it’s soon revealed, he’s now employed by a hotel, driving patrons to and from the airport and escorting their luggage through an armed security gate. Sam resides with girlfriend Mia (Loryn Nounay), who’s pregnant with their child (or so a single line of dialogue indicates), as well as her daughter Dara (Chananticha Chaipa), a precocious kid who views Sam as her dad. Mia works at a nearby restaurant called Paradise and has ambitions to open her own place on the beach. Sam, meanwhile, is helping her earn enough money to make her dream a reality by competing in local kickboxing matches that—much to his coach Hansa’s (Vithaya Pansringarm) chagrin—he throws in order to net extra dough for himself and others, including the bouts’ promoter and Mia’s shady gambling-addict restaurant boss Sombat (Sahajak Boonthanakit).