DVD reviews: Cell 211 | The Troll Hunter

SOME films have such a smack-your-head-simple concept it can make you wonder why nobody’s tried it before. Cell 211 is a film like that. Though pretty much conforming to the tropes of the prison movie subgenre – inmates-vs-screws antagonism, authentically gritty acting, full-on violence – this Spanish thriller has a fantastically engrossing hook that elevates it several notches above other movies of that ilk.

That hook revolves around rookie prison guard Juan Oliver (Alberto Ammann), whose keenness to make a good impression in his new job backfires when he shows up for work a day early to learn the ropes, only to get caught up in a full-scale riot.

The brilliance of the concept, though, is that Juan gets trapped on the inside before anyone on the outside realises, forcing him to make a snap decision to pretend to be a prisoner in an effort to stay alive long enough to get out. Ratcheting up the tension is the presence of the riot’s instigator, Malamadre (the fearsome Louis Tosar), whose hard-to-read disposition, weirdly protective instincts and far-reaching political aims (he takes a trio of Basque terrorist inmates hostage) force Juan to tread even more carefully as he inveigles his way into his inner circle while trying to covertly communicate with the outside world. Director Daniel Mozn demonstrates a capacity for blending high concepts with high-minded ideas here and the end result is confident, ingenious, hard-hitting entertainment.

Unlike Cell 211, The Troll Hunter is a film that suffers from a once-ingenious concept becoming thoroughly ubiquitous. Deploying the mock-doc “found footage” device, this Norwegian creature feature, following a group of film students as they stumble across a secret government-backed Troll Security service, is roughly the 745th feature film since The Blair Witch Project to use the approach.

What saves it is its inherent silliness and the fact that it makes the most of its faux-reality technique to overcome any obvious budget shortfalls: CGI trolls are frequently viewed through the spectre of night vision, and the green, hazy glow makes it easier to buy into the goofy concept. Alas, as it progresses, the joke begins to wear thin without being accompanied by a parallel rise in tension.