Fermat's Room

This film is simply put as a gimmick film, if you start to look even shallowly under the surface it all comes apart in your hands, but it sure is fun.

A few people whom we only know by the names they are given by a mysterious host converge on a secluded barn by invitation to impart on the solving of the best enigma ever. They are mathematicians and brilliant, there's Pascal, a middle aged man who recently accidentally put a women in a coma when he hit her with his car. Hilbert, an older man, looks like a slick playboy, but sort of pompous, Oliva, the token woman, then Galois a young brilliant mathematician who figured out a 200 year old problem only to have it stolen from him, and finally Fermat the host of the affair.

Its strange for them from the get go, they don't know why they are there and what they are even supposed to do, when Fermat is called away with an emergency the game begins. They have a minute to answer each riddle, if their time expires then the walls start to move in on them, so their room if they do nothing will be to small for even one of them within the hour. There are industrial presses pushing the walls together, they don't have a window or other exit. So at times they play along, other times they start to see if they can some how sabotage the compressors.

As we watch we start to learn more about them, and how there's a connection, and how maybe one of them is behind all of this, or not, they are desperate to figure a way out. The riddles are all ones Ive heard before, or for the most part were, so I already knew the answers for most of them, it took them longer to figure them out than it did for me to remember, but then again when I did those riddles it took me longer than a minute. I was hoping for the riddles to be a little more difficult, but they do get harder as the time goes by.

Almost all of the movie is in the one location, much like parts of "Saw" we are simply watching their panic as they try and figure this out and then start to turn on one another. Like I said earlier if you start thinking about it as real it falls apart quick, all these part would have to fit together perfectly for them all to come together and figure things out like they are supposed to, as well as if all four walls are moving in....hows that possible? Wouldn't the corners crush against it self? Only two walls would be able to come in, not all four, but oh well, who really cares.

Its a fun enough movie, a little light on the thriller scale, but something to pass the time, its a gimmick, but at least its one that works in keeping me watching. 7/10 stars.

Director: Luis Piedrahita, Rodrigo Sopena

Starring: Lluis Homar, Alejo Sauras, Elena Ballesteros, Santi Millan, Federico Luppi