The Belko Experiment (2016)

A bunch of people who work in an office building in South America find themselves sealed in, with a voice over the intercom telling them they must kill a certain number of themselves or even more of them will die. The tracking devices injected in the base of their skulls, ostensibly there in case they were abducted, are actually bombs. So if they don't comply, they really will be killed by the flip of a switch. 

Chaos ensues. Some people hide, others try to contact the outside world, and others decide very quickly that there's no way out other than to play by the rules laid out for them and set to killing. Justifications abound, of course. They have children, families who will miss them. Better the old or childless die instead. Of course, then there's John C. McGinley's character, who is just a violent incel shithead. Pretty sure no one would miss him, but he's willing to play along and shoot people, so he's OK.

I was particularly satisfied when he bought it, although that was at least 47% because I hated McGinley's character on Scrubs. Pretty much the same as when he got capped in season 6 of Burn Notice. McGinley's very good at playing grating assholes.

I did actually enjoy the varied reactions in the early stages. The maintenance guys trying tog et the AC working just to help calm people down. The guy convinced there was something in the water making them act crazy, so he goes around upending water coolers. The guy sobbing while he writes a letter to his loved ones. I feel like I would have been like Dani, sought out a quiet place and waited for it to end, assuming I couldn't find some way out of the building.

I was curious to see how this would play out, but having watched it, I'm not sure what point director Greg McLean or writer James Gunn might have been trying to make. Always read the terms and conditions? Corporations, which are now defined as people, in turn regard people as commodities to be exploited as is deemed most profitable (for however you want to define profit)? Shared bonds between people are illusory, as any high-minded ideals about working together will ultimately be pitched out the window in favor of beating a guy to death with a tape dispenser?

Because I'm not sure what to take from Mike Milch's arc. Insistent they shouldn't even consider killing each other, trying to get others to safety. But once he loses his girlfriend, fuck it, revenge killing time. And Gunn films the kill with Mike outlined by the light from a projector while some song or the other plays in the background (not sure what the point was of the Spanish language version of "California Dreamin'" either). 

I guess it's shot like some dramatic, triumphant moment as a joke, because it's really a failure. For all his talk, Mike resorted to violence. You could argue Mike acted not out of desire to live, but to make certain Norris died, but as Norris observed, Mike didn't change anything. A point emphasized at the very end of the movie, which shows this was just one test of many. His big play was the equivalent of wasting a middle-manager.