To take the stress out of deciding what movie to watch, and save a certain someone from getting the blame if the film turns out to be sh*t, I decided to create a lucky dip and the first test of our new system was the new Spanish drama film Bajocero aka Below Zero.

Set over the course of a few hours, Below Zero tells the story of a routine prison transfer that is ambushed mid-journey and all but one of the police officers are killed. Martin, the surviving officer is injured and locks himself inside the armoured truck with the prisoners. But as the convicts figure out a way to escape their cells, Martin has to formulate a plan to survive the threats both inside and outside.

Okay so first off, there were quite a few plots holes, some hilariously bad shooting and despite the film’s title, the sub zero temperatures don’t actually play much of a role in the film at all but overall the story was actually surprisingly gripping and held our interest. Despite the simple enough story and small cast, there were enough twists and turns to keep you guessing until the very end.

Each of the characters had a sufficient enough back story for us to be able to appreciate the roles they ultimately wound up playing but overall they were a little one dimensional and under-developed.

The film is predominantly dialogue based but there is some violence and the occasional shocking use of gore. The choice of music was subtle but added to the overall suspense and elevated some scenes that could’ve quite easily fallen flat.

Now looking back, my review does ultimately read as negative but despite all of it’s obvious flaws, I actually quite enjoyed this film overall and would definitely recommend you give a watch at least once.

Below Zero is now available to stream on Netflix.