There's a few unusual things here, though: this particular office building is behind a walled compound on the outskirts of Bogotá, Colombia, there's a bunch of very unfriendly guards making everyone nervous, all the local employees are being sent back home.
Oh, and later we learn that all employees accepted to have a surgically implanted tracker in their skull. That's never a good sign.
In any case, it's as close to another day at the office as those (admittedly pretty alarming) conditions allow. That's until steel plating slides across all the windows and exits, and a voice comes over the PA system to calmly explain that unless two people are murdered in the building within the next thirty minutes, there will be severe consequences.
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| Spoiler: She doesn't make it. |
So it's one of those 'throw a bunch of people together and try to get them to kill each other' kind of thing. What's neat about this one is its economy; It's only twenty minutes into the movie when the murder deadline hits, and the implants inside four employees' heads explode. Within that time we've been introduced to most of the movie's main characters, and several key relationships have been set up: There's nice guy Mike (John Gallagher Jr.), his love interest (Adria Arjona), the COO (Tony Goldwyn), two maintenance guys (Michael Rooker and David Dalmastchian), a stoner cafeteria worker (Sean Gunn) and a nasty asshole (John C. Mcginley, doing a great job at being hateable). It also introduces a bunch of faces that will later pop up in the background; "Oh, hey, it's that guy/gal!"
It couldn't possibly do justice to the eighty people enclosed in the building, but the film manages a sprawling cast of extras pretty well.
After the first round of deaths, the voice comes on again to say that if thirty people aren't dead within the next two hours, sixty people's heads will 'splode. And we're off to the races.
The battle lines are drawn fairly quickly - extreme pragmatists versus idealists - although, as Mike points out early, who the fuck would ever believe that whoever's running this will let anyone get out alive?
As always in this tiny subgenre, It's neat to see how the cast spreads out along the morality spectrum. Once the majority opts for basic human decency (a nice touch), the COO, who makes a convincing, rational case for mass murder, leads a group to try and seize an armoury protected by a security guard (James Earl) who's firmly on the "no murder" side of the equation. Things get very bloody.
The Belko Experiment is a nasty piece of work. Gleefully misanthropic and genuinely upsetting, it's a great example of an exploitative school of script writing that I call 'finger in the ass' - A deeply manipulative premise designed entirely to make you uncomfortable. I normally resent that, but damn if it isn't successful here; Everything from the basic setup to many of its particulars is unpleasant, and the film doesn't skimp on gore or horrifying imagery (expect mass executions and physical and psychological distress - sexual violence thankfully isn't a factor given the short timeframe.)
Director Greg McLean does great job switching between the film's multiple stories while keeping forward momentum. I'm guessing he also brings a big heap of grimness to the material (based on his other movies) that helps give the film its queasy energy. Gunn's script is superb, keeping the black humor and clearly satirical take that runs throughout the material under control, and making enough of the characters likeable so that it hurts when they get die (often in humorously abrupt ways). He also keep things relatively believable, especially in the first half of the movie. Things spiral out of control in ways that make sense.
There's an abrupt ending that kind of stretches credulity, complete with an entirely underwhelming explanation for... well, everything that happened, and even sets up a sequel. It's understandable why the crew thought it was necessary, but I'd argue it undermines the rest of the movie. But other than that and some abrupt tone switches, this is an excellent low-budget worksploitation film.
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