Basement

Starring: Danny Dyer, Jimi Mistry, Kierston Wareing, Emily Beecham, Lois Winstone

Synopsis:

Travelling back from an anti-war demo in central London, five students get lost in the countryside and have to make an unscheduled pitstop to answer nature’s call. Taking the opportunity to stretch their legs, the individuals wander off briefly – Gary (Dyer), Sarah (Wareing ) and Pru (Beecham) eventually returning to their car to find Derek (Mistry) and Saffron (Winstone) missing. Their search for the missing two leads them to discover an open metal hatch with Derek’s jacket next to it. Heading down the long ladder, the trio find themselves in a filthy, dingy underground facility. As they continue their search, the hatch they came through has been sealed from the outside, and someone else – or something, is down there with them...

After the rather compelling “The Last Seven” , Basement unfortunately pales in comparision. Set mostly in a murky, dimly-lit underground bunker system, the viewer is often left in the dark as to what is happening or why.

The film starts with the three girls preparing to take part in a big anti-war/anti-Blair rally in London. Saffron in particular is the driving force behind them, the sort of political activist thrusting a clip-board petition in your face and insulting you if you decline to sign. Gary meanwhile is conflicted as his dad served in Iraq and sadly came home in a coffin. Derek is introduced purely as Pru’s boyfriend and driver to and from the rally.

Nobody feels right for their roles, except Saffron, and she disappears for a long stretch of the film. Danny Dyer is way out of his comfort zone here, never seeming at ease with his character, but he isn’t alone. Mistry is just as bad, and all the girls are way too shrill. All the characters try and talk in the same “loveable cockney” way of speaking as Dyer, to make it seem that they all come from similar backgrounds, but it just makes the whole thing worse.

There are one or two decent red-herrings thrown in early on, but it’s pretty obvious which character is complicit with their situation almost from the moment they find the basement. The film is shot competently enough, getting as much out of the cramped location as possible. It’s a bit perverse though that the best-lit scenes in the whole film are the Night-Vision p.o.v shots. There are times when it really is impossible to know exactly what is happening. The first attack on the group is a prime example.

Verdict

There are loads of films set in a single location where a lot of the running time is taken up with people running up and down corridors. “Botched” is an excellent example of how to do this well. Unfortunately Basement is near the other end of the scale. Everything just feels half-baked, especially the script. The whole concept of what is going on just hasn’t really been thought through.

4 out of 10 (MikeOutWest)

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