‘Mayhem!’ (2023) & ‘Lost Bullet 3’ (2025): More French Ultraviolence

Directed by: Xaiver Gens [1], Guillaume Pierret [2] || Produced by: Vincent Roget, Dimitri Stephanides [1], Rémi Leautier [2]

Screenplay by: Magali Rossitto, Xavier Gens, Guillame Lemans, Stephane Cabel [1], Guillaume Pierret, Caryl Ferey [2] || Starring: Nassim Lyes, Loryn Nounay, Olivier Gourmet, Chananticha Chaipa, Vithaya Pansringarm, Sahajak Boonthanakit [1], Alban Lenoir, Nicolas Duvauchelle, Stéfi Celma, Gérard Lanvin, Quentin D’Hainaut [2]

Music by: Jean-Pierre Taïeb [1], Guillaume Roussel [2] || Cinematography: Gilles Porte [1], Jean-Baptiste Jay [2] || Edited by: Riwanon Le Beller [1], Sophie Fourdrinoy [2] || Country: France || Language: French [1, 2], Thai, English [1]

Running Time: || 1 = Mayhem!, 2 = Lost Bullet 3

Over the past 15 years or so, I explored international cinema far beyond the reaches of either Hollywood major studios or independent English-language cinema; one of my more pleasant discoveries during that time was my newfound appreciation for the diversity of contemporary French genre cinema and modern French action movies in particular. French filmmaking is often stereotyped as artsy, dramatic, and catering toward awards-bait in cinephile communities, but the general weirdness of most types of French cinema often gets overlooked. From the recent monster movies of Under Paris (2024) and Infested (2023) to Julia Ducournau and Coralie Fargeat’s bizarre body horror (e.g. Raw [2016], The Substance [2024]) to Guillaume Pierret’s Lost Bullet (2020, 2022, 2025) trilogy to Francois Civil’s extensive military and crime drama thrillers, modern French cinema maintains a healthy mix of genres from interesting filmmakers, even if I do not always love the end results.

Nassim Lyes (center) fends off criminal attackers with his Muay Thai skills toward the end of Mayhem’s first act.

Mayhem!, Xavier Gens’ last feature he made prior to Under Paris, boasts many tropes characteristic of successful standalone action movies the world over: A down-on-his-luck protagonist flees a bad situation and gets involved with sympathetic costars; said costars suffer thanks to the past activities or old rivalries of said protagonist; shit goes down, and the protagonist attempts hardcore revenge. You have seen this movie before (the movie’s French title is Farang, the Thai slang term for “foreigner,” not to be confused with Martin Campbell’s tonally similar Foreigner [2017], starring Jackie Chan), but that is not necessarily a bad thing.

For example, Lost Bullet 3 (LB3), the other film of focus in this review, is the presumed final installment in Netflix’s Lost Bullet trilogy by Guillaume Pierret and bares resemblance to Mayhem! in many respects. Its story depends on the motivation of vengeance, threats toward costars are used as leverage by the villains throughout, and the screenplay builds to a chaotic explosion of violence in the third act.

Where LB3 bests Mayhem! is in its pacing, which appears to separate the men from the boys in most action films (compare John Wick 4 [2023] to Ballerina [2025], Fury Road [2015] to Furiosa [2024], or The Raid [2011] to its sequel [2014], for example). Both movies feature a variety of action styles (e.g. hand-to-hand combat, bladed weaponry, gunplay, etc.) against diverse physical backdrops, and both use action scenes to progress their story rather than awkwardly blocking their story around them. The only big problem Mayhem! runs into is how long it takes to establish its chief location and premise, where lead Nassim Lyes, a French-Algerian ex-convict and martial artist, flees his criminal former employers to Thailand to start a new life. Put simply, the entire first act of Mayhem! is a dull bore; Gens has an eye for beautiful outdoor cinematography with what appears to be mostly natural light, but the slice-of-life portrayal of Lyes with his idyllic family (costars Loryn Nounay and Chananticha Chaipa) drags across scene after scene of mundane domestic affairs. Much of the supporting cast outside of the bad guys, for that matter, lack screen presence, and even prolific character actor Vithaya Pansringarm feels underutilized.

The third Bullet film, on the other hand, continues the hot streak of its franchise predecessors by wasting nothing and no one. Whether you examine dialogue-driven scenes or vehicular combat set-pieces, Pierret edits his latest film down to the bare essentials and the film is a smooth, well-oiled machine because of that discipline. Character development of multiple important new (Gérard Lanvin) and returning (Nicolas Duvauchelle, Quentin D’Hainaut) faces expand the film’s narrative scope for an appropriate trilogy climax, but otherwise, LB3 prioritizes plot-progression through fluid, dynamic set-pieces. If you enjoyed the previous two entries in this series, you have zero reason to postpone watching this latest one, as it provides all the alleged joy of those dumbass Fast and the Furious (2001-) movies but without any of the, well, dumbness…

Top: Lead man Albain Lenoir (left) tangoes with one of the Lost Bullet series’ principal antagonists, Nicolas Duvauchelle (center) in a fistfight from the third film. Bottom: Showcasing the series’ extensive, diverse action sequences, a semitruck smashes through a helicopter in Lost Bullet 3’s adrenaline-fueled finale.

I had intermittent fun with Mayhem! and almost nonstop fun with Lost Bullet 3, in other words. Action fans will, therefore, enjoy both, while I suspect general audiences will get along much better with the latter; that is, of course, if anyone has even heard of the Lost Bullet series at this point. Together, these two exemplify the high production values and identifiable weird flavor of modern French genre cinema, a subsect of a national film culture that I feel remains overlooked. Awards-friendly European dramas have little trouble making waves in film festival circuits, yet their genre counterparts can now be appreciated by most anybody with an Internet connection. Perhaps that is a form of artistic fairness after all.

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SUMMARY & RECOMMENDATION: Gritty like a Gareth Evans picture and featuring just as diverse cinematic violence, Xavier Gens’ Mayhem! and Guillaume Pierret’s Lost Bullet 3 exemplify the stylized personality of contemporary French action filmmaking that few other, if any, cinematic cultures replicate. Mahem! struggles a great deal more than LB3 with pacing issues thanks to its anemic first act, but takes advantage of its Thai locale for moody, almost neo-noir tone and Muay Thai fight choreography. LB3, though, struggles with almost nothing thanks to its buttery smooth plot and effective utilitarian characters.

— However… suffice it to say that viewers of either film have to stomach considerable blunt violence to appreciate them. That is not a knock on either film so much as it is an admittance that these films do not have the multidimensional characters of an Aliens (1986), Predator (1987), Terminator (1984, 1991), or Jaws (1975) to vastly expand outside their core audience.

—> I am ON THE FENCE with respect to Mayhem! and RECOMMEND Lost Bullet 3.

? I hate to say it, but I think Europeans (e.g. Mayhem!, Only God Forgives [2013]) make better Thai action movies than Thais do (e.g. Bangkok Breaking [2024], Ong Bak [2003]). Aw, come on, you know I’m right!