Below Zero

 3/4

Starring: Javier Gutierrez, Luis Callejo, Patrick Criado, Isak Ferriz, Karra Elejalde, Andres Gertrudix, Edgar Vittorino, Alex Monner, Florin Opritescu, Miquel Gelabert

Not Rated (probable R for Strong Violence and Language Throughout)

Last year, Spanish actor Javier Gutierrez gave the best performance of 2020 in "The Occupant."  He was so good that I said that no one in any movie released that year could possibly come close and I was right.  No one did.  Not the late Chadwick Boseman in the overrated "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom," not Sacha Baron Cohen in either "The Trial of the Chicago 7" or "Borat Subsequent Moviefilm."  No one.  In a perfect world, he would be the lock for a Best Actor winner at the Oscars.  The problem was the absolutely no one saw it.  Netflix didn't know what they had on their hands, and thus spent no money advertising it.  To this day, I'm still super annoyed at this.

Gutierrez now stars in another thriller, this one called "Below Zero."  It's a standard order adventure movie complete with a morally upright hero, an unstoppable villain and a colorful cast of supporting characters with reservations at the morgue.  The story is as formula as it gets, but the cast gives it their all and there's enough suspense and dread to make it worth a look.

A police officer named Martin (Gutierrez) has just transferred to a new precinct.  His first assignment is to transfer a group of prisoners from one jail to another.  The group of convicts are the usual gang of misanthropes and degenerates including a thief named Ramis (Callejo), a white collar criminal named Pardo (Gelabert) and a tough gangster named Mihai (Opritescu).  Martin believes in following the rules, but that doesn't apply to his partner Montesinos (Ferriz), who is too "tough" to care.  Things get ominous before they even get on the road: some prisoners are hostile, others are preparing to escape, and the route is completely deserted.  Worse, the temperature is freezing.  But none of them have any idea of the terror in store when the truck is sabotaged on the road and they're picked off one by one.

Take out the Spanish actors for Americans and throw in a macho, rugged hero and you'd get a movie that would be at home in a multiplex during the summer.  That's fine, though.  There's always room for a turn off your brain action flick as long as it contains the requisite amount of action and adrenaline.  On that level, "Below Zero" is a success.  Yet there is also a sense that it could have been more.  The direction is pedestrian and no one would ever call the screenplay very good.  Words like "intelligent" and "well-written" do not apply to this movie.  There's very little atmosphere; the cold weather is as much a foe as the killer, but we don't feel it.  That limits the amount of suspense that the film can generate.

I watched this movie because I became an instant fan of Javier Gutierrez after watching "The Occupant."  But the danger of giving such a towering performance is that it can be difficult to accept the actor in a different role.  My mom always said that she could never watch a movie with Anthony Hopkins after seeing "The Silence of the Lambs."  I admit that, knowing little about this movie, I was initially mistrustful of Martin, but Gutierrez pulls off the role of a hero with ease.  It isn't a great performance (the character seems unafraid of gunfire), but I accepted him as the mild-mannered cop.  He has great support, including Luis Callejo as a pragmatic thief and Patrick Criado as a squirrelly criminal.  Karra Elejalde generates menace with his nothing but his body language.

"Below Zero" is what it is.  It's a 106-minute adrenaline cocktail.  It's loud, violent and more than a bit dumb.  It serves a purpose and a fun ride if you don't mind subtitles.  But there's no getting away from the deflating feeling that, with just a little more effort, it could have been so much more.