Send Help

Contrary to its title, Send Help offers no reason to panic, given its clever concept and delightfully offbeat sensibility.

Marking a welcome return to form for director Sam Raimi (Spider-Man), this dark comic thriller has style and attitude to spare while giving corporate bullies a comeuppance in playfully subversive fashion.

It broadly satirizes misogynistic office politics through the eyes of Linda (Rachel McAdams), a socially awkward accountant who’s due for a promotion at the powerful consulting firm where she’s toiled dutifully in a cubicle for years.

However, after inheriting the CEO role from his retired father, Bradley (Dylan O’Brien) decides to pass her over, citing her penchant for smelly food and annoying conversational habits.

Before kicking her to the curb, Bradley invites Linda aboard the company’s private jet for an overseas pitch meeting. The heckling only intensifies. Then a storm causes the plane to crash into the ocean in southeast Asia. Linda and Bradley wash ashore on a deserted island with danger lurking and no way of contacting the outside world.

Linda is a nerdy aspiring “Survivor” contestant whose resourceful skills hunting for food and building makeshift shelters suddenly come in handy. Bradley, despite being hobbled with an injury, tries to undermine her efforts, which seem magnanimous under the circumstances.

Ulterior motives continue to shift the power dynamics, with Bradley clinging to a sense of superiority over his subordinate and Linda seizing that opportunity to assert greater control.

“No help is coming,” she explains forcefully. “This is the way things are now, and you need to accept that.” Are they alone? Is there hope for rescue? Is that what both of them even want?

Perhaps the film’s greatest strength is its ability to juggle tones, from the harrowing crash sequence to the amusing aftermath before transitioning into a twisted and bloody saga of survival and revenge.

Repetitive bickering exposes the thin premise in the screenplay by Damian Shannon and Mark Swift (Freddy vs. Jason). However, both actors generate hard-earned sympathy for characters we wouldn’t normally want to hang out with outside the office — which facilitates a buy-in to their outlandish gamesmanship.

This genre hybrid mixes in some gross-out gags while keeping its tongue firmly in cheek as a female empowerment fantasy. Obviously there’s some lush tropical scenery, too, although in the case of Send Help, we’ll skip the vacation and just look at the pictures.

Rated R, 113 minutes.