Bentley plays the role of funny, cagey psychopath quite well, and the film packs more laughs than frights. What woman wouldn’t be interested after his homicidal message of love?
P2 (2007)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:67
Fresh:23
Rotten:44
Average Rating:4.3/10
Consensus: P2 is full of gore, but low on suspense, featuring a cat-and-mouse plot has been done many times before.
Rated: 18 [See Full Rating] for strong violence/gore, terror and language.
Runtime: 1 hr 38 mins
Genre: Horror/Suspense
Theatrical Release:02-05-2008
Synopsis: Most people who have been alone in a parking garage have probably felt vulnerable to an attacker amidst the silence of the cold concrete walls, but what would you do if your assailant were the... Most people who have been alone in a parking garage have probably felt vulnerable to an attacker amidst the silence of the cold concrete walls, but what would you do if your assailant were the attendant? That's the question posed by P2, which fits into that sub-genre of thrillers that unfold in one primary location (think Mario Bava's KIDNAPPED, PHONE BOOTH, or WIND CHILL). The script, co-written by Alexandre Aja (THE HILLS HAVE EYES, HIGH TENSION), Franck Khalfoun, and Gregory Levasseur, offers a basic cat-and-mouse tale with a couple of jolts of bone-rattling gore. It's Christmas Eve, and young New York executive Angela (Rachel Nichols) is the last to leave her office before heading to New Jersey for a holiday with the family. Already late, she is dismayed to find that her car won't start. The handsome, seemingly helpful garage attendant, Thomas (Wes Bentley), checks out the car for her, but to no avail. The next thing she knows, Angela wakes up in the garage office in a dress, chained to a chair, with a Christmas dinner laid out before her. Thomas has been watching her for a long time, and with everyone else gone for Christmas, he finally has her alone. Angela will have to fight with everything she has to make it through to Christmas morning. Under the first-time direction of co-screenwriter Khalfoun, P2 is a solid thriller that delivers ample action, despite being an amped-up two-person stage play. Nichols is an appealing heroine in a physically demanding role, while Bentley's wacko Thomas never veers into cartoonishness. This isn't one for the SAW crowd, though the two brief moments of splatter are certainly of that gross-out caliber. Vintage Christmas songs are also used to strong effect. [More]
Starring: Wes Bentley, Rachel Nichols
Starring: Wes Bentley, Rachel Nichols
Director: Franck Khalfoun
Director: Franck Khalfoun
Screenwriter: Franck Khalfoun, Alexandre Aja, Gregory Levasseur
Story: Alexandre Aja, Gregory Levasseur
Producer: Alexandre Aja, Gregory Levasseur, Patrick Wachsberger, Erik Feig
Composer: Tomandandy
Studio: Summit Entertainment
Reviews for P2
Has a central setup that only holds water if we assume that the victim has recently escaped from a home for the terminally bewildered.
Storyline was laid out well. There were a few scenes where you find yourself laughing at the movie, but overall it was a decent thriller.
P2 trembles in the shadow of Red Eye but it's not without its virtues.
[A] film that would have been better served if released only as a DVD and not in theaters, or better yet not released at all.
Wes Bentley...may be a tad over the top as a sociopathic parking attendant, but the paces he puts his victim through are cleverly thought out (one impossibility excepted) and continually rachet up the tension.
Just in time for the holidays comes this vile exercise in yuletide terror. On the plus side Rachel Nichols gets to run around in a slip most of the time.
P2 feels like a vehicle lost in an after-hours parking facility, constantly backing up, shifting gears and generally speeding around in circles in a vain attempt to get somewhere.
P2 may be bad enough to become some other type of classic than the holiday kind.
There's some ghoulish humor in P2, and a couple of scares, but it's little more than the umpteenth variation of the woman-locked-in-a-house plot.
This is one of those thrillers where the person on-screen is often the only person in the theater who can't guess what'll happen next.
A slickly efficient neo-grindhouse shocker, a gory palate cleanser for this season of high-toned Oscar magnets and high-minded political dramas.
It knows what it is and never purports to be anything but efficient and engrossing.
The only scary part about this is that someone out there might actually love it.
Even by the low standards of the horror subgenre playfully nicknamed "torture porn," P2 is scraping the bottom of the movie barrel.
Amid the dumbness and disgust for paying customers, the movie does manage to cough up something I didn't expect: a performance so terrible you can't quite believe it's happening: Bentley's.
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