Panic Room (2002)

An effective exercise in "confined cinema," Panic Room is a finely crafted thriller that ultimately transcends the thinness of its premise. David Koepp's screenplay is basically Wait Until Dark on steroids, so director David Fincher (Seven, The Game) compensates with elaborate CGI-assisted camera moves, jazzing up his visuals while a relocated New York divorcée (Jodie Foster) and her daughter (Kristen Stewart) fight for their lives against a trio of tenacious burglars (Jared Leto, Forest Whitaker, Dwight Yoakam) in their new Manhattan townhouse. They're safe in a customized, impenetrable "panic room," but the burglars want what's in the room's safe, so mother and daughter (and Koepp and Fincher) must find clever ways to turn the tables and persevere. Suspense and intelligence are admirably maintained, with Foster (who replaced the then-injured Nicole Kidman) riffing on her Silence of the Lambs resourcefulness. It's not as viscerally satisfying as Fincher's previous thrillers, but Panic Room definitely holds your attention. --Jeff Shannon Amazon.com

A thrilling and dramatic experience

As you can see by the rating I really just thought this movie was okay. There isn't a huge amount to go into beyond that concept because the movie is fairly basic in concept. Though, I have to admit that the way they generated the drama with the location was quite impressive.

This is a movie based around the story of a robbery gone wrong. The robbers didn't expect anyone to be in the house, but Jodi Foster's character and her daughter had already moved in early. The house has some unusual features, such as an elevator and a panic room. The panic room, which the movie is named after, is a small room that people can hide in and survive if attacked. It's behind very thick steel, so it's nigh impossible to get through and it comes complete with a camera surveillance system. Naturally the robbers were expecting the room to be empty, but Foster really throws that wrench in their plans. What they're after is in that room, it just so happens that one of the robbers installs those kinds of rooms, thus enter Forest Whittaker. As you can see the stage is set for a very suspenseful ride. The whole movie takes place in this house and really doesn't go anywhere else. That alone is fairly impressive. Seriously, to stay on screen for two hours and not leave the same location, that takes pretty good writing and they do manage to pull it off. Not to mention this is all done with like five actors and a sixth enters later with almost no lines.

Despite the very competent acting, the film still felt a tad drawn out. This is a shock to hear me say because I'm usually the guy wanting more out of the movie! The suspense was certainly great and the acting was very well done. However, I can't see myself watching this numerous times in the future and that's what really separates a great movie from an okay movie for me. I did like the interaction with the robbers the most once they realized their carefully laid plans weren't going very smooth. The audience is meant to eventually sympathize with Whittaker's character, which I thought was a bit of an interesting twist, though I really don't think Whittaker would make a really good down and dirty robber with loads of violent experience. Seriously, it's just not him, so he was perfect for this role of a man who was in over his head, so to speak.

I think this is definitely a movie worth seeing once, at the very least. If you're a fan of Jodi Foster films I don't see how this could possibly disappoint you. I'm not a huge fan of hers, but I typically enjoy the films she puts out. That's about all I can think to say on this, just a good thrilling and suspenseful movie if you ask me. June 26, 2008

Over-hyped.

Panic Room starring Jodie Foster and Kristen Stewart is a major disappointment. Probably David Fincher's most inconsistent film to date. All the actors are good in this but it's too long and boring. Jared Leto and Forest Whitaker look completely horrible, jeez who was in charge of hair and make-up? Panic Room is the biggest disaster of 2002. June 18, 2008

Wow, was this a Bad Movie...

I'm sorry to say ... this is one of the worst movies I've ever seen. And it was a free rental! What a disappointment... the movie couldn't decide if it wanted to be Home Alone or Psycho and sadly, it never even began to touch the hem of either of those movies. Blech. June 16, 2008

Root against everyone except Forest Whitaker

New York itself plays a major role in Panic Room, where the paranoid need protection from the hyper, anxiety-saturated dark element. It's, evidently, where back-alley threats and urban terrorists attack the pure and virtuous wealthy New Yorkers.

Meg Altman (Jodie Foster) and her daughter Sarah (Kristen Stewart) are living in a spacious Upper West Side brownstone town house, with architecture that reflects the priciest of pricy New York abodes - large and expensive enough for three or four young professionals to live in, and they'd still have to live off of ramen a few times per week. Meg attained her home via the money-grubbing divorcee route, with real estate revenge as her sole purpose for even choosing the Richie Rich option in housing.

In this ridiculously large home in which Meg and her daughter have ten times the room they truly need, there is no real need to furnish the house. Instead, Meg is worried about her WASPish needs such as finding the corkscrew for her wine bottle, how to steal more money from her ex-husband, and, oh yeah, making sure she has enough diabetes medicine for her daughter. On top of all the other opulence, they have a luxury above all other needless luxuries: a panic room. This panic room is the amenity of all amenities, and for only the filthy rich. It acts as a barricade for an extended period of time for any and all rich occupants, and via its Ft. Knox security and armaggedon stockage, all rich occupants remain safe from all non-rich people.

In the case of this movie, I was kind of hoping that the criminals would win because the money and security clearly wasn't earned. However, the three criminals in his movie aren't that lucky. Burnham (Forest Whitaker) is a safe-cracking, goofy-as-hell yet somehow intelligent role tailor made for Forest Whitaker. Junior (Jared Leto) is the ADD-riddled, get rich quick bad element generically typical in every psychological thriller. And Raoul (Dwight Yoakam) is the heartless psychopath of the group, ubiquitous to this type of movie. While fighting for power and control, the criminals build tension and suspense, allowing the viewer to not only choose sides between Meg and the villians, but also amongst the villians themselves.

Generic maternal instinct provides determination enough to thwart the bad guys in a foreshadowed Lavergne and Shirley meets Jackass style of female empowerment ending. I knew the ending about halfway through, but it didn't suffer a loss of entertainment value as a result. Good movie. March 14, 2008

AWSOME MOVIE!!!!!!!!!!!

I bought this movie and watched it. It was so good so so so exiting and so suspencful threen men broke into jodie fosters home her and her daughter where sleeping the three men did not know someone was home the thought no one was home but they wake up and see in the camras and there are peple in her home. I dont want to give it away but I think you should get it and OWN IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!YOU WILL WANT TO WATCH OVER AND OVER! February 12, 2008

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