The Belko Experiment *** (2016, John Gallagher Jr, Tony Goldwyn, Adria Arjona, John C McGinley, Michael Rooker, Melonie Diaz) – Movie Review

Director Greg McLean’s Battle Royale (2000)-style action thriller horror movie is lusty but nasty, with its strong bloody violence throughout.

Somebody is conducting a  a twisted social experiment that locks 80 Americans in their high-rise corporate office in Bogotá, Colombia. A Big Brother-style unknown voice over the company’s intercom system orders them to participate in a deadly game of kill or be killed.

It is done very well, in a convincing, edge-of-seat kind of way. But I’d have liked it more if there were fewer deaths. Maybe it is just me. It gets dizzying and depressing after a while. And some of my favourite actors and characters bite the dust all too soon, and all too suddenly. Bang, they’re dead!

[Spoiler alert] It perhaps does have something to say and arguably it does have a sense of humour, a dark and bleak one, of course. But mostly it has a lot of dead people. And then there were none – or were there?

John Gallagher Jr, Tony Goldwyn, Adria Arjona, John C McGinley, Michael Rooker, and Melonie Diaz head the large cast, all them fine as long as their roles last.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Movie Review

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