PANIC ROOM
Released: March 29, 2002
David Fincher returns with his first flick after 1999's "The Fight Club". And what do we get from this celebrated director of such great flicks as "Se7en" and "The Game"? Well, it's better than his "Alien 3" sequel from 1992 but not quite scaling the heights of his other works. However, it is a fun ride and worth checking out if you're a fan of Fincher or Jodie Foster. Foster turns in a decent role as Meg Altman, mother of daughter Sarah (Kristen Stewart). Meg has been recently divorced and both of them are looking for new life after the rather unsuccessful marriage. So they settle down in the big city and find a nice, cozy, perfect house. Or so they think at least. Thinking the house would be vacant, a group of thieves arrive in the middle of the night and break in. Playing the bad guys are Forest Whitaker, Dwight Yoakam and Jared Leto - three guys of varying consciences. What they're after becomes less of a priority when Meg and Sarah baracade themselves in the "panic room", a specially constructed and virtually unpenetratable barrier between the room and the rest of the house. Oddly enough, it's the daughter who keeps her cool and shouts out many of the orders to the mother - despite the fact the girl is suffering from a diabetic crisis during the whole home invasion. What is nice about "Panic Room" is that Fincher keeps things rooted in logistics. Nothing happens that you can't buy into and everything seems to happen with realistic consequences, changing the way the good and bad guys strategize. As a David Fincher movie, it's somewhat of a disappointment. But even a somewhat disappointing Fincher movie is better than most of what inhabits our multiplexes these days...
Trivia: Nicole Kidman was originally set to play the role Jodie Foster eventually played. In fact, amost three weeks of shooting happened with Kidman before she was injured on the set running up or down the stairs during one of the many physically demanding scenes. Apparently, they changed the daughter at least once too. Regardless, the Foster/Stewart combo works well and so does Foster's intensity in dealing with her captors.
122 Minutes
Columbia/Sony