Farang - Schatten der Unterwelt

I had waited months for this to come be available in North America. I had high expectations given the episodes from Gangs of London and Frontieres. The last 20 mins was well choreographed and as violent as I would have expected the rest of the movie to be, in the end felt like some missed opportunities to ratchet up the action. Some of the locations were amazing. Overall worth it fro the elevator scene! The story felt way too dramatic when in reality it was a cookie cutter revenge story. Not sure about the lead actor - he was good in the action scenes but the dramatic parts were too drawn out.

"I loved her more than you ever could."

Mayhem! Is directed by Xavier Gens and stars Nassim Lyes.

We're only about 7 days into 2024 and I think we already have a contender for best action movie of the year. Mayhem! Also known as Farang (Foreigner) is like if you combine Taken and John Wick and The Raid movies and you blend them all together.

Sam (Nassim Lyes) is a guy who's taken a lot of punches both mentally and physically. When we first meet him he's an ex-con just getting out of jail trying to get his life together and escape his local gang. He eventually does build a life for himself and wants to buy a house for himself and his wife however Thailand's laws and a powerful real estate developer get in the way. As you could guess one thing leads to another and Sam is on a warpath for revenge.

Despite the story being so cliche I appreciate Xavier Gens as a director for essentially showing all of Sam's struggles for about the first half of this movie and showing the pain and hardship he has to go through so when his wife is eventually killed it's his breaking point and the Sam we get for the rest of the movie is cold and brutal when he has to be. The grounded approach of the movie's action design, combined with fight scenes that get more gory and brutal than the last really make this great. Sam also isn't invincible here making all the fight scenes feel genuinely dangerous. Xavier Gens (Hitman, Gangs Of London) is also a second unit director on the upcoming Gareth Evans, Tom Hardy movie, Havoc as well so if you already weren't excited for that this movie is even more reason to be.

This movie was a huge suprise for me and is easily a contender for best action movie of the year already with a star making performance from Nassim Lyes. Unfortunately I feel like this film will probably get buried because of its DTV release through IFC Films. Xavier Gens is certainly a name to watch in the action space going forward.

Been awhile. The last film I saw from Gens was Frontier(s) some years back which was eye opening and fiersome.

Fast forward, and here we are. He's done some "smaller" projects I believe since my indoctrination into Euro horror and thrillers, abd this one did not disappoint.

All too familiar tropes won't work if you don't have the atmospheres, the cinematography, and in this particular case, the extreme violent sequences. So beware, this film was far away from the faint of heart, but he did pay over and above homage to some of the better directors in the subgenre---Takashi Miike, Perk Chan Wook and the more recent to join in this clan, Gareth Evans.

It's bleak, it's realistic and graphic at the core of the violence. But when you have a solid lead protagonist---the violence comes through that character rather easily. It's a story of redemption in its infancy that turns on its heels into one of the best revenge films of the the past 10 years. Gritty, beautifully shot, and gripping enough to hold you, and even hard to look away when its at it most challengingly disturbing.

Bring on the XG shark film...

Mayhem!, efficiently directed by Xavier Gens is violent, melancholy and features two extendedly-bloody fight sequences. Unfortunately, Mayhem makes the cardinal sin of making you wait almost an hour for any of the fight choreography promised in the trailer to appear. The Mayhem part of the movie really only applies to the last 35 minutes. Thankfully, the fight choreography is punchy, bloody, violent, and framed in a way that will make anyone who's watched The Raid movies smile. The question is, does the roughly 45-50 minutes it takes to get to the goods worth it? Sort of. The story is simple, clichéd and has quite the melancholic ending. The fighting makes up about 20 or so minutes of the movie and for a 100 minute movie titled Mayhem, it's not enough.

HOWEVER, if you can relax and make it through you will enjoy what Gens and his stunt team put together. The final hallway fight into a gory melee in an elevator is stunning. It's the in your face brutality promised by the movies title and I had to watch it multiple times to revel in its glory. If only the pacing was tightened up Mayhem could have been up there with the greats. Until then, it's a fine Sunday afternoon watch if you don't have anything else to do.

This is a seriously good film.

I read a few reviews and one reviewer had a good point, for a film also known as Mayhem, the action could have been more ongoing, like Wick 2,3,4 and Extraxtion 2. 'He' mentioned that you have to wait a bit for the action to get going. That is true, with some small action pieces and then BANG its on for young and old.

The fights are full on uncompromising, bloody and make your jaw hit the floor as you process what you are looking at.

So good!!

I eagerly await more from Xavier Gens and hope he works with Nassim Lyes again as this pairing was a winner from start to finish :)