Exam (15) ***
Directed by: Stuart Hazeldine
Starring: Luke Mably, Jimi Mistry, Nathalie Cox, Pollyanna Mackintosh
In this sporadically ingenious British entry in the low-budget “people in a room” subgenre, eight candidates for an unspecified corporate position are led into a vault to sit an aptitude test under the eyes of a gun-carrying invigilator. When the contenders turn their papers over, they find only a blank sheet, forcing disparate personalities - a cocky Master-of-the-Universe type (Mably), a born gambler (Mistry), a Nigerian who explains all the science parts (Chuk Iwuji), some slightly interchangeable women, plus a borderline autistic Frenchman - to pull together and ascertain the question they’re supposed to be answering.
Like his characters, writer-director Hazeldine makes canny use of the limited resources available to him, creating fun distractions with the vault’s lighting and sprinkler systems; there’s also novel use of foolscap as a torture implement. The trouble is we’ve now seen enough of these cheap, easily produced calling cards - last year’s Fermat’s Room, the Canadian chiller Cube - for them to be as striking as they once were, and the circular company talk suggests Exam might only be entertainment for those with subscriptions to Forbes magazine. Watchable, but somewhat mechanical; mark it down as a C/C minus, and hold out for the DVD.
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