Director: Greg McLean
Writer: James Gunn
Stars: John Gallagher Jr., Tony Goldwyn, Adria Arjona
Link: https://amzn.to/2GiHy4o
Synopsis
We’re in Bogota, Columbia. We see the Belko Industries building, and it’s a very high-security place with dogs sniffing cars on the way in. They only let some of the employees in, and others get sent home. A Spanish version of the song “I Will Survive” plays as the credits roll and we see people doing things in the office. It all looks very mundane and normal. We see a control room with a bunch of little red lights and TV monitors. We’re told that employees are injected with a tracer, supposedly to prevent kidnappings. We spend a lot of time meeting and seeing the various characters, but all the local employees got sent home– only the international people are here in the building today.
The loudspeakers announce that there are eighty people in the building, but in eight hours, most of them will be dead. The man says that if there aren’t two dead bodies in the building in thirty minutes, there will be consequences. Metal shutters close off the entire building. No one is leaving. The shielding also cuts off all cell phone reception.
Barry, the COO, comes in and thinks this is all some kind of prank. The maintenance guys try to cut through the armor, but they can’t even scratch it. Mike, the systems guy, thinks this is not a prank. The stoner guy thinks it’s a psychological test… until the new girl’s head explodes. Random people all over the building start exploding; it’s the implants. Mike tries to cut out his implant, but the loudspeaker threatens to detonate him immediately. They find cameras everywhere.
They are told the rules, the 76 people alive in the building are not to dismantle any cameras or try to extract the trackers– or else. They are given two hours to kill thirty people. If not, they will kill sixty on their own. The panic begins, and the deaths start soon thereafter. The maintenance men are the first to go. Mike says this isn’t going to stop after killing thirty people; they won’t allow witnesses to live.
The top bosses blowtorch open the armory. They say it’s for safety, but Mike thinks they want the guns. Evan, the security guard, makes them stop, but enemies are made. Mike starts to think the whole building was designed for this purpose. He thinks it’s a government experiment, and their whole last year of work was just to set all this up.
Barry knocks out Mike, kills Evan, and gets the keys to the armory. Barry realizes that there are too many guns in the armory; he also thinks this whole thing has been arranged. Everyone gathers in the lobby, and Barry and his gang start separating groups of people. As the Spanish version of “California Dreaming” plays, they try to execute 30 employees. Then the lights go out, and everyone scatters.
The speakers announce that only 29 people have been killed, so they will now detonate 31 more as promised. Boom! Boom! Boom! That’s what they do. The body count rises significantly. Now, the rules change– the one who gets the highest kill count in one hour will be allowed to live. Time to pump those scores up, so things start getting personal.
Barry gets stuck in the elevator, so his number isn’t going up. Wendell the lecherous perv gets what’s coming to him. Barry has an unfortunate ending, and Mike ends up winning.
He ends up talking to “The Voice” who explains that it was actually an experiment. He’s gathering data. When Mike sees that after his experience, given the opportunity, he has no problem killing.
Commentray
These “Battle Royale” type movies always seem to have a Mike-type character who is too heroic to simply murder everyone. This moral character usually either survives or makes it to the very end. I want to see one of these films where everyone legitimately tries to kill each other.
We see in the final scene that this is only the most recent iteration of the experiment, and that there are dozens more. I’m waiting for the inevitable sequels.