Film Reviews

P2

• Rating:
• Director: Franck Khalfoun
• Starring: Rachel Nichols, Wes Bentley, Philip Akin
• Details: US / 98mins (18)

It's Christmas Eve, and hardworking executive Angela (Nichols) is late joining her family for dinner. Closing up her office and heading towards the car park, she finds herself stuck in the lower levels of the building with Tom (Bentley), a security guard who has spent all his free time stalking her. There's something inherently intriguing about a car park as a location for a thrill-ridden scare-fest. The empty repetitive turns engulfed in darkness, the looming shadows - but there needs to be more than just a suitable location to deliver the obligatory thrills. Angela is a pretty weak character for a protagonist, offering Nichols precious little to get her lungs around. Granted, it's all set within one night, which makes it difficult to give any character context; but surely therein lay the challenge for the film makers? Caring about our damsel in distress should've been priority number one for the screenwriters when they (evidently) finger-painted the script. That would be forgiven though, if they least gave us a few scares - not too much to ask, right? Well it fails miserably on that, the most basic need of any thriller or horror. We're supposed to believe that Ricky Fitz is a dangerous psychopath, when he comes across as simply a loner in desperate need of a hug. There lies another terminal fault: Wes Bentley is wholly miscast as the villain. He plays Tom like an affable loon, with anger issues that wouldn't rival those of an obese toddler craving more sugar. Afraid of him? I wanted to hold him until someone came forward and adopted the hairy little tyke - he just wanted to have dinner. There are sudden bouts of extreme violence that feel out of place with everything that has gone before it; they are not particularly innovative or scary, more gore for the sake of gore. Not enough thought has gone into this production at all - but as opposed to being overtly bad, it just feels like a completely mishandled concept that had genuine scares in there somewhere. A complete waste of a stellar setup

Review by Mike Sheridan