When you think of movies set in Spain, you’re likely to think of the colour and vivacity associated with the likes of Pedro Almodovar. You’re probably less likely to think of thick, rolling fogs; temperatures so low it hurts to exhale; and glacial expanses of frozen lakes. But that is exactly the setting for Lluis Quizel’s Below Zero (Bajocero), which has just arrived on Netflix.
The film opens with a young man named Chino (Alex Monner) begging for his life from a mysterious hooded figure. From there, we are dropped into what seems to be a more straightforward police procedural drama. Martin (Javier Gutierrez) joins a new precinct, where he is partnered up with Montesinos (Isak Ferriz) for his first assignment – a night shift where he must transfer some of the most high-risk prisoners to another facility.
Montesinos – with his porn-star ‘tache – is the more cavalier of the two; he’s happy to bend the rules and slap the prisoners around. By contrast, Martin is a rule follower and a quiet man. He takes his job seriously and exudes a more quiet air of authority.
Inside the armoured van, we get to know a little more about its “cargo”. There’s Ramis (Luis Callejo), a career criminal who seems to know every trick in the book; Pardo (Miquel Gelabert), a government accountant who has been cooking the books; and Mihai (Florin Opritescu), the fearsome leader of a brutal Romanian crime gang.
Despite not having a particularly lengthy run time, we do feel like we get to know all of the characters and their situations. Each prisoner has his own agenda; his own desires; his own reasons as to why he’s better than his fellow passengers.
It’s definitely a slow burn in terms of building tension – Quizel deliberately misdirects our sympathies and throws in plenty of red herrings to distract and disorientate his viewers along the way. But, once the action does kick off, it goes from quiet journey to full-scale, screaming riot within a matter of minutes.
A shadowy figure uses spikes in the road to run the van off its course. But who has done this? Which prisoner are the connected to? Is this a cunning escape plan or is there something more sinister at work? By keeping the action relatively contained to the police van, Quizel allows tempers to fray; resulting in plenty of bloody violence and all-out panic.
The scenes inside the prison van are tremendous. They really do keep you guessing and there are a few shock “early exits” – shall we say – that will really throw your train of thought. It’s extremely tense and, apart from rule-following, quiet Martin, it feels like there is no one there you can trust.
However, Below Zero isn’t quite your conventional one location thriller. In fact, it feels like a film of two distinct halves. And, while I’m not convinced these two halves make a whole, both are equally interesting and tense in their own right. Violence is perhaps the one thing holding these two halves together. The location of the last 30 minutes or so shifts dramatically and – whilst initially it feels like the pace of the movie has almost ground to a halt – it delivers an emotional sucker punch that you maybe weren’t quite expecting.
At 1 hour 46 minutes, Below Zero doesn’t outstay its welcome. Although the two distinct “halves” of the film feel a little disjointed, it is still definitely worth a watch. There are particularly compelling performances from the main star, Gutierrez, and from Patrick Criado as the prisoner, Nano. And, I would argue, that it will keep many viewers guessing till the end.
Below Zero is now streaming on Netflix.
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