A pounding headache, a hotel room that looks like a bomb has gone off in it, and a body in the bath. Then there is a knock at the door. Bad Day at the Office throws you straight into its hero’s skull and refuses to let you out, and for a good long while that is a riot.
Shot largely from a first-person point of view, Chee Keong Cheung’s London action thriller opened the Midnight Madness strand at this year’s Edinburgh International Film Festival and is in UK and Irish cinemas now, including 4DX screens.
Bad Day at the Office is a sugar rush of a film: wild, ridiculous and great fun, right up until the crash.
Movie at a Glance
- UK release: In UK and Irish cinemas from Friday 30 October 2026, including 4DX
- US release: No US date announced
- Distributor: Action Xtreme
- Director: Chee Keong Cheung
- Starring: John Hannah, Radha Mitchell, Tamer Hassan and Lana Parrilla
- Runtime: 112 minutes
- Certificate: 15 (UK)
- Genre: First-person action thriller
Viewer Match
- Best for: Fans of Hardcore Henry, Crank and anything that treats action as a theme-park ride.
- Maybe skip if: You are prone to motion sickness, or you want a thriller with a strong story.
- Mood and pace: Frantic, loud and silly, with almost no pause for breath.
- Cinema or streaming? Cinema, especially 4DX if you are brave. This is built to be experienced on a big screen.
- Spoiler level: Spoiler-free: we only describe the opening minutes.
Who Is Karl Davis?
John Hannah plays Karl Davis, or at least that seems to be his name. He wakes with no memory, a box of pills and a note telling him to take one whenever his heart rate climbs too high. It climbs within seconds. Two police officers who are not quite what they seem arrive to search the room, and Karl discovers he can fight. Soon he is on the run across London’s underworld with Molly, the hotel maid played by Radha Mitchell.
It is a simple premise, and it gives the film licence to throw everything at the screen. The perspective switches between Karl, Molly and a furious gangster, so the chase keeps changing shape.
Pure Momentum
The first hour is gleefully ridiculous. Karl races down a multi-storey car park, dodges a machine-gun-toting killer clown at a nightclub and fends off attackers with whatever comes to hand, including objects that are best left for you to discover. Pink graffiti-style captions keep score of the chaos on screen. The camera work is inventive, the stunts are impressive, and the first-person view makes it oddly believable that Hannah has become a parkour master.
Hannah is clearly having a ball. He brings real comic energy and a hint of bewilderment to a man who has no idea who he is or why everyone wants him dead. Mitchell is a good foil, and some of the best moments come when the film briefly cuts away to her calmer perspective.
When the Novelty Fades
The problem is stamina. The film runs close to two hours, and the relentless pace that feels thrilling early on becomes exhausting. Once it settles back into its gangland plot, the story turns out to be a fairly routine tale of revenge and double-crosses. The gimmicks keep coming, but they have less to prop up, and the violence and crude humour will not be to everyone’s taste.
With a tighter edit and a few more quiet beats, this could have been a cult classic. As it stands, it is a fun, disposable blast that would have been even better at 90 minutes.
A British Action Oddity
It is great to see a home-grown action film this bold on the big screen. For more of the latest choices, see our latest Weekly Cinema Pack, and if you are staying in tonight, try What to Watch Tonight.
Spoiler-Free Verdict
Bad Day at the Office is a gloriously silly, technically inventive ride with John Hannah on brilliant form. It runs out of road long before the finish, but its best scenes are a wild treat.
- Performances: 7/10
- Direction: 6.5/10
- Screenplay: 4.5/10
- Score: 6/10
- Cinematography: 7.5/10
- Entertainment Value: 7/10
- Overall score: 6/10
Star rating: 3/5
Verdict badge: Best watched in the Cinema
One-line verdict: A first-person thrill ride that is a blast for an hour and a slog for the rest.
Watch the Official Trailer
Get inside Karl’s head with the official extended trailer.
Could you cope with a whole film from inside the hero’s head? Share your spoiler-free reaction to Bad Day at the Office.