DVD Release Date: 4/1/2008 Running Time: 98 minutes
Rated R for strong violence/gore, terror and language
I'll confess that I have what could probably be considered a mild phobia of parking garages. What can I say? The damn things are frightening. There are so many places to hide, as well as a claustrophobic element. Often completely shut off from daylight, once you enter a parking garage one gets the feeling that there's nowhere to run, and it's so easy for someone (or a group) to sneak up on you and mug you. Thus, when I heard about P2 before it came out, I was highly intrigued. As a fan of horror, I love a good scare, and a thriller with a setting whose very nature wigs me out sounded like a great idea.
As it turns out, watching P2 was a great idea. Not because I was scared...but now because I realize that I have no reason to fear the once terrifying setting of the parking garage. I don't have to be afraid...no, I just have to be remotely intelligent when I go into them, and I should do just fine.
The Movie
Angela (Nichols), an aspiring climber of a powerful New York City law firm, is stuck working late on Christmas Eve. She's promised her family that she'll be there, which as we learn from a phone call to her sister Lorraine, is a promise she's made and broken often. After working way later then everyone else in order to fulfill her boss's needs, she heads down into the parking garage to find out that her car isn't starting. Of course, it being a parking garage, her cell phone has no service, and so she walks back to the elevator room to find it locked. Walking to the security office on floor P2, Angela asks for help from the night security guard Thomas (Bentley). Thomas does his best to help her get her car started, to no avail, and even invites her to share the Christmas dinner he's prepared himself. Angela, after an appropriate moment of befuddlement, politely declines. Unfortunately for her, she doesn't realize that Thomas has been closely watching her for months, and has chosen this moment to make all of his--and in his mind, her--dreams come true.
What follows next is, by and large, your typical “obsessed psycho chases down damsel in distress” film. Thomas kidnaps Angela and, after an acceptably creepy attempt to have dinner with her, complete with a dress he’s changed her into and a chain around her leg, the film moves outside the security office, into the parking structure itself. Thomas tries to give her a “gift” that she very much doesn’t want, and soon a cat-and-mouse game ensues. The question becomes, will Angela find the strength within her to survive the night, or will Thomas get his twisted Christmas fantasy come true?
Unfortunately for P2, the real question is, “How did the filmmakers get such a talented cast to appear in this inane piece of garbage?” P2 is an unmitigated disaster of a thriller. Wes Bentley and Rachel Nichols are both talented actors who are far better than this film allows them to be. Bentley in particular is a crime, as he’s an exceptionally talented young actor whose choices of film roles are only getting worse and worse. Soul Survivors is an acceptable, fun B-level horror film, and was an early role of his. The Four Feathers, as boring and overwrought as it was, at least featured Bentley in a fine performance. He was the best thing about Ghost Rider. But even he can’t summon up a good performance as Thomas, a poorly-written obsessed psychopath, and his performance comes off as incredibly uneven and mismanaged. He shows signs of his typical brilliance in some creepy moments, and he has the ability to go from benign and friendly to menacing with the slightest shift of his head, or a different shade of a smile. It’s only the moments the script requires him to ham it up that Bentley becomes laughably bad, and instead of being scared, one ends up smirking.
Nichols, for her part, is forced to play a character that, while she starts off smart, starts to grow stupider as time goes on. I have a seriously difficult time sympathizing with and cheering for a character when they keep doing stupid, stupid things. When Angela, having retrieved both her cell phone and Thomas’s keycards, chooses not to go for the elevator room and instead sticks her hand out of the exit gate do get a signal, you can practically shout “You’re just going to drop the phone!” And guess what? She drops the phone. When she hits the beginning stages of fighting back, she doesn’t fare much better. Only in the end does she start to redeem herself in that way, and her transformation from terrified victim to blood-spattered, avenging Erinye is written in such a contrived, jarring manner that no actress could have pulled it off believably…and Nichols is no exception there.
The director, first-timer Franck Khalfoun, is way out of his depth here. Khalfoun manages to film a movie contained almost entirely inside a parking garage, with absolutely no sense of claustrophobia, nor any invocation of what makes a parking garage actually scary. All of the fear is provided directly from Thomas or his dog Rocky, and the setting ends up seeming almost superfluous. This is an absolute crime as a filmmaker, as the setting is supposed to be what’s unique about the film; everything else is standard thriller material. There is one clever twist that takes place in the elevator, where Thomas has to find a way to get Angela out, and this ranks as one of the two or three best scenes. The film is moderately low on the gore, excepting one nasty scene involving Thomas’s “gift” to Angela. Even that is more mildly gross then cringe-worthy, and the gore certainly doesn’t add anything to the scene, it just makes things a bit harder to take seriously.
Khalfoun takes some very obvious references from producer Alexandre Aja’s previous bodies of work, particularly High Tension. That film was not a good one, nor is this. Khalfoun and Aja’s next collaboration will be, the gods help us all, a remake of the 1984 slasher film Silent Night, Deadly Night. As bad as it will be, at least we can hope for one thing—maybe they’ll have learned something by how badly P2 bombed, and try to make something better.
But hey, if not, at least all those kids who are scared of Santa will have something that can cure that.
Film Rating: 3.0
Technical Aspects
P2 is presented in an Anamorphic 2.35:1 Widescreen ratio. The video transfer is crisp and clean, and despite the darkness of the film, things are never hard to follow, which is an essential element of horror for me. Too often, a film that largely takes place in a dark environment ends up being washed out in the DVD transfer, and it’s hard to follow what’s going on. In this, at least, P2 excels. One particular shot, perhaps the legitimately creepiest one in the film, is beautifully depicted when Thomas’ face slowly comes into view from the darkness behind Angela. With a lesser transfer, the effect (and one of the few good parts of the film) would have been damaged.
The only audio option is an English 5.1 Dolby Surround, with the option of English, Spanish, or no subtitles. This is also a good thing for this film, as the ambient sounds of the parking garage can be heard very nicely.
Technical Rating: 8.0
Special Features
Commentary Track: This track, featuring director Franck Khalfoun, co-writer and producer Alexandre Aja, and co-writer Gregory Levasseur, is perfectly serviceable, and probably the best of the special features. While Aja’s French accent is difficult to follow sometimes, the three have an obvious love of their final product; it’s merely too bad that I can’t share that feeling. They mostly say nice things about Nichols and Bentley, and talk about the shooting schedule.
A New Level of Fear: The Making of P2 (12:05): The standard self-congratulatory behind the scenes featurette. Bentley talks about what drew him to the role (he obviously sees the film differently than me), as does Nichols. Aja and Khalfoun talk about how it wasn’t a horror film; it was a survival film (which is really just a subgenre of horror/thrillers). The most laughable moment is when Khalfoun talks about how Angela is really a smart woman who never does anything stupid. Um, hello, cell phone? Dropped?
Tension Nouveau: Presenting Franck Khalfoun (3:03): An utterly redundant featurette, considering large portions of it are already in the making-of. Largely, it’s Khalfoun talking about what works in survival films and how his acting career helped him. Yeah, I can see how playing a minor role in High Tension and a character only known as “X” in Snowboarder would be a great help to an aspiring director. Right.
Designing Terror (5:19): A featurette about the set. Honestly does everyone use the “the set is the most important character of the movie” line these days? Because it’s really getting old.
Also included are trailers for P2 and Never Back Down. May I say…meh.
Special Features: 5.0
The 411: P2 is a travesty of a thriller; a film that had a great concept and an amazing cast, but is utterly ruined by poor writing and a limited director. There's nothing new here, and the potentially inspiring setting is as wasted as Wes Bentley and Rachel Nichols. The protagonist displays typical thriller idiocy, and the villain is badly unbalanced, resulting in an unrewarding film. The special features are tolerable, in particular the commentary track, but these don't even come remotely close to saving the movie and all in all, the film is one that you could easily pass up for better fare at the video store.
Well, its clear nononow that you don't get it, you just think you do. If you didnt realizzize that Thomas is real and pyschos are real and usually NOT scary but rather pathetic causing one to "sirk" in relief. YOu 've proven yoursaelf a hack with one poor attempt at being "clever" one has to "smirk"
Posted By: CriticsandComplainers (Guest) on April 11, 2008 at 05:08 AM
