Panic Room Video

Average Rating:

I used to think David Fincher was incapable of making a bad movie. Even the last few scenes of Fight Club, as painfully hokey as they were, didn't set me up for a whole two hours of badness. And to be fair, Panic Room isn't all bad. But it's A DAVID FINCHER FILM (yes, in all caps), and that's about it. There's loads of style here, but substance suffers as a result.

Newly-divorced Meg Altman (Jodie Foster) and her daughter Sarah (Kristen [The Safety of Objects] Stewart, one of the film's true highlights) move into a four-story brownstone in Manhattan. (Suspend one's disbelief, for the moment, that one could actually FIND a four-story brownstone in Manhattan on the market.) The house was equipped with a panic room by its previous owner, a paranoid and very rich financier. Needless to say, the night Meg and Sarah move in, three guys break into the house, looking for the paranoid financier's money, which, as we're told in the beginning, has never been found.

The first review of the movie I read quipped that "one day, David Fincher will make a movie entirely without light." The reviewer neglected to add that the same movie will probably take place completely outside in the rain. To further telegraph that this is, in fact, a David Fincher film, we get the nausea-inducing camera tricks of moving between floors, etc., through various air vents and the like (and through walls when nothing convenient is available). And while the film does ostensibly have humans in it, it's obvious within twenty minutes that the stars of this film are the dark, the rain, and the camera.

That said, there's some decent acting in here. Kristen Stewart has already been mentioned, but she deserves another mention. She's good. Jodie Foster does what she can with a limited script (we're given many signs at the beginning that she's claustrophobic, but then when they actually get themselves into the panic room, her claustrophobia magically goes away. Ain't life grand?), as does the usually brilliant Forest Whitaker. Whitaker, along with Jared Leto and Dwight Yoakam, are the three invaders. Leto shows absolutely nothing of the talent that made him so watchable in Requiem for a Dream, but Yoakam (South of Heaven West of Hell, Sling Blade, etc.) gives a career-making performance as the only invader who actually seems as if he's a bad guy. (Another script point woefully underdone: loads of possible tension between Yoakam, Stewart, and Whitaker in an extended scene that, in the hands of the right director, could have been a movie in itself [think Polanski's Death and the Maiden, e.g.].) Also, Ann Magnuson's all-too-brief performance as the real estate agent at the beginning of the movie was up to, well, Ann Magnuson's usual standards. Too bad she never shows up again.

I will say in passing that, in the screening I attended, I seemed to be in the minority. The audience (one wonders if they caught Se7en, The Game, or any of Fincher's other superior films) was completely taken in, cheering for the good guys, booing the bad guys, etc. Fincher does manage enough shameless emotional manipulation to make this movie worth killing two hours of your time, but you're much better served waiting for the rental. **

Jodie Foster has come a long way since starring in those Disney films "Candleshoe" and "Freaky Friday". Having been nominated for four Academy Awards (1977 for "Taxi Driver", 1989 for "The Accused", 1992 for "The Silence of The Lambs" and 1995 for "Nell") and winning twice ("The Silence of The Lambs" and "The Accused") she is a versatile actor who has shown that she can hold her own against the best of them. Since her last nomination she has decided to take time and make a movie every other year. This is her first movie since 1999's "Anna and The King" which failed to ignite at the box office. "Panic Room", directed by David Fincher ("Alien 3", "Se7en", "Fight Club") is a look at what happens when your first night in new surroundings becomes a chilling battle for survival. Meg Altman (Foster) is a single mother with a daughter (Newcomer Kristen Stewart) who has just finalized a divorce from a pharmaceutical big shot. Now she and her daughter are looking to find a place to live. They settle on a quaint New York brownstone with three floors. The place is everything they need and more. There is something else that it has that puzzles Meg. You see the original owner was paranoid and never thought you could be too safe so he had a secret room put in the apartment. That room is known as a "Panic Room" and features virtually everything that you would need should you ever find yourself confined to that room. As Meg and her daughter settle in for the night, they have no idea that three murderous thieves (Forrest Whittaker, Dwight Yoakam, Jared Leto) are intent on getting into the house and obtaining a cache of money hidden in the house. Fleeing to the Panic Room mom and daughter try to get the thieves to leave but they are not easily persuaded and when they reveal that what they want is located in the "Panic Room", they realize that they are in for a long night unless they can figure out a way to outwit the thieves who are trying to get in. One of them it is later revealed helped create the room so he tells the other's that since we can't get in we have to get her to come out. How they attempt to do so is quite suspenseful. Country Music singer Dwight Yoakam is chilling as one of the three villains. He spends the first half of the movie covered up by a mask and speaking very little. However halfway through he gets really nasty and shows his true colours. The movie has a lot of nifty camera angles that give you a spooky tour of the place. Every inch of this place looks creepy at night and during some key scenes it makes the movie all the more frightening. I also liked the whole cat and mouse aspect of the film. The thieves can't get in and mother and daughter can't get out. At one point in the story the heroine finds herself faced with a life or death situation involving her daughter. Does she risk their lives to get what is needed or does she stay in the room and hope for some help? Scary stuff indeed.
Review: **** out of five