Film Reviews

Fermat's Room

• Rating:
• Director: Luis Piedrahita, Rodrigo Sepana.
• Starring: Lluis Homar, Alejo Suaras, Elena Ballesteros, Santi Millan.
• Details: Spain / 88mins (TBC).

"Do you know what prime numbers are? Because if you don't you should leave right now," is the opening line to Fermat's Room, a Saw-like thriller that will appeal to all kinds of mathematicians and statisticians. Considering my previous experiences with Busy At Maths, Figure It Out, and a string of frustrated and emotionally broken maths teachers, I should have followed the advice and left, but the responsibility of this film reviewing thing insisted that I stay put. Four very different people - all ingenious when it comes to figures and theorems - receive a complex puzzle in the post: solve it and they're invited to an exclusive meeting where they will be given a chance to solve the world's greatest enigma. Upon arrival in a remote corn house, they are guided to a small room where they are greeted by Fermat (Frederico Luppi). Before he gets down to business, he receives a call from a hospital where his daughter is in a coma and, fearing its bad news, leaves immediately. The remaining four suddenly find that they are locked in and a text message on a phone informs them that they will be presented with a series of puzzles: they have one minute to solve each conundrum before the walls begin to close in. As they struggle to solve the riddles, the four 'contestants' try to figure out why Fermat wants them dead... Fermat's Room is a great idea for a movie but with numerous torture porn movies on the go (and the Saw series heading for number six) the idea is a little tired. To Luis Piedrahita and Rodrigo Sepana's credit, they do try to expand on the guinea pig characters that litter the Saw movies but these attempts feel tacked on and the characters aren't that interesting. As the plot develops and we learn more about those trapped and twists begin to pile up, Fermat's Room gets ever more ridiculous. The denouement will bamboozle too - all this because of that? Hardly seems worth it. I should have left.

Review by Gavin Burke