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A woman and her teenage daughter become imprisoned in the panic room of their own house by 3 criminals.
Jodie Foster: Meg Altman
Kristen Stewart: Sarah Altman
Forest Whitaker: Burnham
David Fincher has made a number of films I'm a huge fan of. Ranging from Zodiac to Seven. Panic Room; Fincher delivers again, a tense fired-up fast paced thriller. He has a talent for using every trick in the book in a way that perfectly merges with the material. He also always makes the most out of every script, which means the comparative quality of the movie relies strongly on the quality of the script Fincher has to work from.
Alien 3 was a false start for Fincher, a mangled and predictable script made merely watchable by excellent direction and some good acting.
In the cases of Se7en and Fight Club the screenplays were brilliant and so are the pieces themselves.
I won't even begin summing up all the loop holes Writer David Koepp has come up with. The fact he's aware of some of them (a villain says `we could've done that' after Jodie Foster's Meg Altman smashes the cameras) doesn't make them any less dumb. There's a case to be made for characters not behaving completely rational in the circumstances the movie presents, but Panic Room frequently stretched my ability to suspend my disbelief. Fincher does a good job of masking most of them, but no amount of great directing could ever compensate for the script's inclination towards cheap thrills.
[Meg smashes the house's security cameras with a sledgehammer]
Raoul: Why the hell didn't we do that?
Koepp's screenplay is conceptually quite strong but turns out to be not only a shelter for plot holes you could build a panic room in, but also a collection of ideas that you could call 'tried-and-tested'. I would rather call them tired-and-testing. You've heard the derogatory terms before; it's Die Hard in a house! or it's an adult Home Alone.
There's truth to both labels, but it goes beyond that. A scene echoing Rear Window I can forgive, but does that cops-knocking-on-the-door sequence have to be lifted from Bound? And is it just me or does the (in itself excellent) opening sequence merely update the one from North by Northwest? Then there's the use of plot devices so familiar you have trouble actually remembering in what film you've seen it before (because it's ten movies, not one). The best example may be the diabetic kid fitted as standard.
Another thing I appreciate in Fincher's other films is the amount of depth he finds room for. One thing becomes clear when watching this film, it's Fincher's homage to Hitchcock project, a thriller played straight with some technical wizardry supporting it (lots of CG camerawork and a reverse dolly zoom, a technique pioneered by Hitch in Vertigo, as the final shot), but a thriller which mainly goes for suspense. While Fincher's direction goes a long way in the suspense department (he cleverly bypasses the predictability of the screenplay) he doesn't seem to have applied any knowledge about why (certain) Hitchcock films are still interesting. Those films' main strength are the strong psychological themes throughout (Psycho, Rear Window and Vertigo). While Koepp makes some desperate resort to Altman's claustrophobia, it doesn't really go for that angle. In fact it doesn't seem to go for any psychological angle at all. As such, I found it too plot driven and lacking characters I really connected with. That lack of depth in any sense may not kill the movie, but it does reinforce my impression that this is Fincher's 'good-career-move' flick. A straight, stylish thriller with plenty box office potential but little substance. It feels somewhat like a film to rebound his career after cult hit Fight Club became a box office dud.
''I spent the last 12 years of my life building rooms like this specifically to keep out people like us.''
BUT....like I said, while the writing on this film isn't anything to be proud of, in terms of bringing it to screen there are little errors. Fincher succeeds in drawing tension from the most trivial of scenes, using his trademark bag of tricks. He's helped by Howard Shore's fitting soundtrack as well. Again every one of his shots is interesting in itself while they still serve a function, which is atmosphere. It's not as doom-laden as Se7en but threat is always sustained throughout. Panic Room isn't simply stylistically satisfying the way most Hollywood movies are nowadays. It goes beyond that. Technically, this really is a masterpiece. Also, Fincher gets the best out of his cast. Foster has a few truly wonderful (short and emotional) beats, while also showing being capable of handling a physical role such as Meg's. And the triple act of the burglars works wonders, even if Dwight Yoakam goes far OTT by the end.
I've lost count of the times I've watched this thrill ride. Camera angles, intelligent vantage points and multiple split screen shots which work to great effect. The music and sounds really do add to the tension also providing shocks and electric to certain scenes. In the guise of long dreary tones, that if you have ever played the original Resident Evil in the mansion, the same isolated helpless melody is used here, to great effect.
Jodie Foster a veteran actress is top notch class as a damaged fragile mother warily looking out for her daughter. Kristen Stewart also gives a performance worthy of note.
Jared Leto, Dwight Yoakam and Forest Whitaker also flesh out their characters to great effect, granted Dwight as Raoul is in a mask for most of the duration of the film.
For all it's tension there is humour also and some brilliant action sequences as Meg and daughter outwit their captives, the burglars.
One of my secondary fave thrillers, David Fincher continues to make smart slick films that give something for your mind to chew on.
8/10
