P2 (18)

May 2 2008 By Graham Young

FRENCH filmmakers Alexandre Aja and Gregory Levasseur made their name with Switchblade Romance which had a certain something as a fright-night chiller.

Now under the spell of the Hollywood dollar, their latest movie P2 is a cat-and-mouse thriller named after... a car park.

Which explains why it's often as dimly lit as the recent horror movie Botched, which was set in plastered corridors in Moscow.

Birmingham's Bullring has a level P2, but you might have more fun walking around there picking up litter than watching a film which is happier descending into gratuitous violence than making the most of the atmosphere like recent Spanish hit The Orphanage. Set to star in next year's Star Trek movie, the now 28-year-old Rachel Nichols (Them) plays a workaholic executive called Angela who leaves her office way too late one Christmas Eve.

While her family wait at home, security guard Thomas (Wes Bentley) has plans about how to entertain her over a festive feast.

P2's best idea is to use CCTV as a means of deciding who ought to be punished.

But this isn't the place to be having satirical fun or making sensible points about freedom like last year's Taking Liberties. When a Rottweiler appears on the scene to challenge Angela in the confined space she's entered, the game's well and truly up.

Like its Christmas subtext, the film feels out of season.