Butler's Cinema Scene

Steven Yeun

“MAYHEM”  My rating: C+ (Opens Nov. 10 at the Screenland Tapcade)

86 minutes | No MPAA rating

Joe Lynch’s “Mayhem” more than lives up to its name.

This giddy celebration of pointless violence finds Steven Yeun, late of cable’s “The Walking Dead,” playing attorney Derek Cho,  an employee of a take-no-prisoners law firm that represents the worst in contemporary American culture and capitalism.

Framed by a fellow attorney for a major screwup on a big case, a defeated Derek is cleaning out his office when police surround the firm’s high-rise  and inform those inside that a particularly malevolent virus has been detected on the premises.

Known as ID-7, this nasty bug causes the infected to lose all the inhibitions that normally keep us from sexually assaulting and or mercilessly beating our fellow men.

An anti-virus has been released into the building’s air conditioning, but it will take eight hours to kick in. Until then the place is under strict quarantine.

Steven Yeun, Melanie Cross

The trouble, of course, is that virtually everyone in the place is turning into a murderous lunatic.

This includes Derek and Melanie (Melanie Cross), a visitor caught up in the chaos.  Initially locked in a basement storage room by the firm’s thuggish security team, the two decide to fight their way to the top floor where they can take revenge on the  board of directors.

Armed with improvised weapons picked up in a tool room (a hammer, a nail gun), Derek and Melanie begin their climb to a satisfying bloodbath.

This is a silly, almost infantile premise for a movie and would be forgettable save for one thing — director Lynch (“Everly,” “Wrong Turn 2”) and screenwriter Matias Caruso share a wicked sense of humor, perhaps best exemplified by Melanie’s virus-fuelled transition from bitter, defeated young litigant to smirking avenger with a what-the-hell attitude.

Think of it as a Loony Tunes cartoon in which everybody becomes Yosemite Sam.

| Robert W. Butler