Panic Room

Movie Title: Panic Room	[Ads/google-ads3.htm]
Official Website (it might still work): Panic Room
Rating (out of 10): 7
Reviewed By: Michael Stevens
Buy the: Video/DVD \| Soundtrack
The Review:

It was a dark and stormy night and Jodie Foster (Contact) is running around in her underwear. That’s not exactly how the film starts, but it is the section that gets the movie going after the initial background information is given about Foster’s character Meg Altman and her family. Now, I don’t want to give you the wrong impression about the film, which you might garner from my first sentence about Foster and her underwear, so just a warning that it’s not sexy underwear, just night clothes. With that settled, on with the plot of this David Fincher (Fight Club) directed thriller.

Meg and her daughter Sarah (Kristen Stewart) are looking for a new place in NYC with an obnoxious real estate agent (Ann Magnuson) after daddy (Patrick Bauchau), the rich pharmaceutical executive, starts sleeping around. Meg and Sarah find a large place in Manhattan that just happens to have belonged to a paranoid rich guy that died recently. This house also has a panic room built in a bedroom upstairs that can provide security against home invasion, plus lots of cameras in a CCTV setup that covers the whole house. After a couple of weeks the two move into the new place, and that night three men break in, but they weren’t expecting anyone to be home. These three are led by Junior (Jared Leto from Requiem for a Dream) whom we later learn is one of the heirs to the dead rich guy’s fortune. Then there is nice guy Burnham (Forest Whitaker) that doesn’t want to hurt anyone, he just wants to get the loot that is hidden in the panic room, which he helped install. Lastly, there is the evil Raoul (Dwight Yoakam) that Junior gets to help at the last minute, which Junior will later regret. So the three break in, and predictably Meg and Sarah get into the panic room, where they hope to be safe. The rest of the movie consists of Meg and Sarah trying to get help while the three bad guys try to get at the money (when they’re not arguing with each other).

This David Koepp (Snake Eyes) written film has a lot of foreshadowing in it, which often gives away too much of the plot. Others in the film are Ian Buchanan, Holt McCallany, Mel Rodriguez, and Paul Schulze.

Panic Room is suspenseful, but still is often too predictable to make a really great film. Also, it starts off too slow for my tastes. Foster and the burglars all put in good performances, but no one really stands out for a great performance. As to the rating, I give the movie seven couches out of ten. PS, no nudity.