Three out of
Five stars
Running time:
98 mins
Watchable, suitably claustrophobic thriller with a few decent sequences and a strong lead performance by Rachel Nichols, though it runs out of steam before the end.
What's it all about?
Written and directed by Frank Khalfoun, P2 stars Rachel Nichols as Angela, a Manhattan workaholic attempting to get to a family dinner after staying in the office too long on Christmas Eve. When she reaches the underground car park (level P2, hence the title), she's frustrated to discover that her car won't start, so she asks parking attendant Tom (Wes Bentley) for help.
Unfortunately, Tom turns out to be a grade-A psychopath and he promptly kidnaps Angela, slips her into a low-cut dinner dress and chains her to a table so they can have a romantic Christmas dinner together. Understandably, Angela doesn't want any part of it, so she escapes and a deadly game of cat and mouse ensues.
The Good
The single-set simplicity of P2 is a strong point in its favour, as is the fact that empty underground car parks are creepy enough in the first place, without having to imagine axe-wielding psychopaths around every corner. Accordingly, Khalfoun capitalises nicely on the claustrophobia and orchestrates several decent suspense sequences in the first half of the film.
Rachel Nichols makes a decent lead and the fact that she's essentially unknown means that you're never quite sure whether or not she'll make it out alive. However, Wes Bentley rather overdoes it as Tom, going for full-on, eye-popping mentalism rather than trying to find anything approaching humanity in the character.
The Bad
However, Khalfoun obviously runs out of ideas about halfway through and after a particularly intense and gruesome scene involving Tom's dog (dog lovers will want to look away at this point), the film goes rapidly downhill, becoming more and more ludicrous and over-compensating with vicious violence. Tom's dialogue is pretty bad too, to the point where you wish he'd just shut up.
Worth seeing?
Ultimately, P2 is something of a mixed bag, but when it works, it's an effectively claustrophobic suspense thriller.