Review #148: P2 (2007)

Cast/Notable Credits:
Franck Khalfoun (Director): Debut film

Wes Bentley (Thomas): American Beauty (1999), Ghost Rider (2007)

Rachel Nichols (Angela): Dumb and Dumberer (2004), The Amityville Horror (2005), The Woods, Star Trek (2009), G.I. Joe (2009)

Simon Reynolds (Jim Harper): Saw 4

Trailer:



Plot:

A security garage attendant (Tom) becomes obsessed with one of the female workers (Angela) at his work. On Christmas Eve Angela is working late in the building and decides to head to her sister’s for a Christmas party. Angela is last one leaving the building and journeys down to the parking garage where her car is.

Her car is on parking level 2…hence the title…P2…and when she gets to the car, it won’t start. Angela heads for the security station for some help and finds Tom. Tom walks Angela back to the car in an attempt to help her start her car.

Unfortunately the two can’t get the car started so Tom offers for Angela to stay a little while and have a nice little dinner with him. Angela dismisses his offer and decides to go back to the building’s lobby and wait for a cab. She calls for a cab, but when it arrives outside, she can’t leave the building because of the locked doors. The cab eventually becomes impatient and takes off. Frustrated, Angela goes looking around for the building’s head security man, Carl, but can’t find him.

Angela heads back down to the parking garage and to her car. The parking garage is all locked up and vacant as Angela finds herself alone in the dark. While in the sublevels of the parking garage, Angela is attacked from behind, drugged and knocked out cold.

Angela awakes to find herself chained to a table in the parking garage’s security station. The dinner table is set up nice like a romantic date. It’s an elaborate set up in the station there are lit candles, roses, wine glasses, fancy silverware and plates decorated on the table and all around the station. Angela also notices that her clothes have been replaced with a sleek, white, fancy dress.

The mastermind behind the abduction is Tom. Tom sits across from her as if nothing’s wrong and treats the encounter like a date. He quizzes her about her personal life, but Angela soon realizes that Tom knows more about her than originally believed.

Tom continues to play his mental game of “cat and mouse” with her while holding her captive. Eventually Angela breaks free from Tom and runs around the sublevels of the locked parking garage while being handcuffed. Tom slowly pursues Angela throughout the remainder of the film, toying with her.

Villain:

Wes Bentley (Pictured left) plays Tom the deranged, obsessive security parking attendant of the building. Tom is what people consider to be the true definition of a stalker. It appears that for some time he has carefully watched Angela over the years, studying her until the day he found appropriate to pull out his caper.

What I found missing from this character is his true intention. I know that he was a stalker and obsessed with Angela, that was made pretty clear, but what I couldn’t figure out is what he eventually wanted to do with her. Was he trying to win her love over? Did he just want a date? Was he going to bang her? I don’t know.

Maybe I’m generalizing, but I though stalkers had some sort of dream that they envisioned with their subject. It was like he had her captive all to himself, but kept yakin’ away until she found the moment to escape. There seemed to be no “master plan” or dream with Tom. He went through all the planning and carried out all of the other things, but there was no “If I can’t have you, then no one can…I’m taking you with me to the grave” moment in the film. I’m pretty sure that he had to realize that his night with Angela would have to be his “last stand in life”.

Cast:

Rachel Nichols (Pictured below) plays the part of Angela in the film…a.k.a…the damsel in distress who will eventually turn into the survivor girl. Angela is probably what you would consider to be one of those “career working girls” as she is dedicated to her job at a law firm.

She puts in long hours and has little time for a personal life which makes her an easy selection for Tom. Angela displays little effort to put her family above her job as the “tones” in the phone calls with her sister suggests.

I found Angela’s character to be a little prude and had a very little emotional bond with the character outside of her being hot. I thought that she took way too long to say, “F*ck it” throw aside being the victim and actually stand up and defend for herself.

Outside of her and Tom the rest of the cast were just bit characters that pretty much showed up as extras or relatively minor characters in the film.

SFX/Gore:

There aren’t too many deaths in the film, but the few displayed are pretty brutal. There is a guy who gets beaten to a pulp with a baseball bat and then rammed into a wall with a car…nice! Angela and Tom does some nice “battle damage” to each other in the numerous fight sequences. On a sad note…Rocky the Rottweiler “bites it”. Sorry for the pun. But not this dog...he's just a pup.

TNA:

Basically the film is about Wes Bentley and Rachel Nichol’s characters…and that’s your TNA section. One piece of eye candy for the boys and one piece for the gals, it’s as simple as that. I give the edge to the boys because we get to see Rachel Nichols…in a skimpy dress…that gets wet…while being handcuffed. There’s also a little creepy video that Angela discovers of Tom feeling her up while she was unconscious.

T.Gun’s Take:

Overall I thought the concept of P2 was a pretty cool idea for a horror movie. The movie poster is sweet looking! How the film carried that concept out on the other hand, was very poor. It wasn’t horribly done from a production perspective, but I felt that it was missing something. Maybe it was the repetitive nonsense that went round and round with no real purpose.

I got kind of bored with Tom capturing Angela, Angela breaking free, Tom chasing Angela, Tom capturing Angela, Angela breaking free, Tom chasing Angela again and so on and so on. I think you get the picture. What was trying to be accomplished with the film? That Tom couldn’t subdue a bound woman? Tom didn’t know what to do with his prize but talk her to death? I think that is where P2 lost me.

P2 had a great creepy stalker idea, but came up a level or two short of what it could have been. P2 does open up some great titles for sequels and prequels. The film’s lack of success could be followed up with:

P2 2: Tom’s Revenge

or

P2 squared: Fear to the 2nd Power

And then we can move onto:

P3: No Parking

or

P3: Unpaid Parking Tickets

And after that movie’s success we can complete the trilogy with:

P4: Speed bumps

But why stop at a trilogy…let’s make it a quadrilogy! All of previous film’s success could lead up to the highly anticipated prequel:

P1: The Beginning

This can easily be milked into three or four sequels! What is Hollywood waiting for?! What d'ya think?

Misc. Movie Trivia:
-Film opened on November 9, 2007 and made $3.9 million at the Box Office ($2 million opening weekend) ~ Film’s budget = $8 million
-Written by Alexandra Aja (HHE 2)
-Film was shot in two months at a Toronto parking garage
-3 Different dogs were used to portray Rocky the Rottweiler
-14 Different white dresses were used