Bad Day at the Office
The sun rising over the city of London, everything is alive, everything in motion, people moving with purpose and direction, places to be, things to do, always trying to get ahead, except in gloom of room 1613 of the hotel where a man wakes up, unable to recall his name, how he got there, why there is a bandaged scar across his chest or why there is a dead man in the bathtub.
Blood everywhere, a tattoo on the hand of the corpse which matches his own, pills on the table and a note to say to take them regularly and not let his heart rate rise, swift arrival of the police and their immediate heavy-handed approach indicates this is a set-up, hotel maid Molly showing up just after and offering an escape route, knowing him as resident Karl Davis, one of the few who treated her as more than just a menial, both of them having a Bad Day at the Office.
Its world premiere an explosive opening to the Midnight Madness strand of the 2026 Edinburgh International Film Festival and attended by director Chee Keong Cheung alongside The Mummy’s John Hannah, Pitch Black’s Rhada Mitchell and Layer Cake’s Tamer Hassan who play Karl, Molly and gangster Solomon, bitter rival of the dead man in the bath, a Serbian mobster whose uncontrollable son Ivan (Tim Fellingham) is now out for revenge, many other cast and crew were present at the packed screening.
Shot with Go Pro cameras in the first person, the perspective shifting and the editing frantic, the picture shaking, blurring and distorted even as it is overlaid with comic book commentary, a tally of the rising bounty on Karl’s head, starting at a million and busting the base rate of the Bank of England, and the number of dead at his hand, only a fraction of the total, Bad Day at the Office is likely the most violent film of the year and revelling in it.
With few moments to catch breath or assess the situation, the effect is dizzying but not in any way pleasant, the parkour scene across rooftops and down the outside wall of a parking garage the most impressive but easier to appreciate as the open space allows the eye to focus on the action rather than an entire spinning frame, but while the locations change, tube train, nightclub, Yakuza run spa, the singular style is as exhausting as it is technically impressive.
The video game style presumably intended to diminish the violence, to present it as so over the top it is laughable, Bad Day at the Office is so relentlessly bloody it does the opposite, a tale of betrayals and grudges and double crosses which glorifies the trail of bodies across the city in a turf war of no quarter or parlay where last man standing in rivers of blood is equated with victory, the final coda ambiguous in its intention but certainly not making the situation any better.
Edinburgh International Film Festival continues until Wednesday 19th August
