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Panic Room
Movie Stats & Links |
| Starring: |
Jodie Foster, Kristen Stewart,
Forest Whitaker, Jared Leto, Dwight Yoakam |
| MPAA Rated: |
R |
| Released By: |
Columbia Pictures |
| Kiddie Movie: |
Some parents brought their
youngin's, six years youngin. I hope the kids had
nightmares keeping the parents awake all night. Leave them at
home. |
| Date Movie: |
She should get scared and
snuggle. |
| Gratuitous Sex: |
Nah, Jodie keeps her shirt on. |
| Gratuitous
Violence: |
Some pretty decent quality kills. |
| Action: |
People chase each other. |
| Laughs: |
There's a cute line or two to
break up the terror. |
| Memorable
Scene: |
One word: Sledgehammer |
| Memorable
Quote: |
None really. |
| Directed By: |
David Fincher |
| Produced By: |
Ceán Chaffin, Judy Hofflund, David Koepp, Gavin Polone |
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Panic Room
A Movie Review |
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Jodie Foster, in a spaghetti string shirt, swinging a
sledgehammer. What else can you ask for? That was enough for me to
like the movie, but I guess there should be more, and "Panic Room" had
a lot. I was a little worried at first, I mean, so mom and daughter
lock themselves in a panic room, also known as a safe room, where it
is seemingly impossible to get in once the door is closed. The bad
dudes want to get in but can’t. Wouldn’t the bad dudes just eventually
give up? But the writers of "Panic Room" added just enough twists so
the story wasn’t totally ridiculous. Here’s the basic story, trying
not to give away anything major.Jodie Foster plays Meg. She’s
recently divorced from her cheating hubby and she’s also got custody
of the daughter, Sarah (Kristen Stewart), who isn’t too keen on the
divorce. What kid is? Anyway, Meg’s looking for a new pad and is
willing to spend a lot of ex-hubby’s money, and what better way than
to buy a huge house on the upper west side of Manhattan, with more
rooms than mom and kid could ever need. On the tour of the house Meg
notices that the one bedroom should be a little larger, and that is
where we are introduced to the panic room, an impenetrable hideaway in
case of home invasion complete with food provisions, toilet, cameras
showing every room of the house, and a dedicated phone line out of the
house. Meg is a little freaked, Sarah thinks the room is cool, and, in
the end, Sarah gets the top floor, Meg gets the third, and all is
well, at least for a few hours.
It turns out, on their first night in their new digs, that three
dudes break into the house. Our three dudes are Junior (Jared Leto),
the one who started the plan because he knew what was in the room,
Burnham (Forest Whitaker), the one who knows how to get what is in the
room, and Raoul (Dwight Yoakam), brought in by Junior for reasons
really unrevealed. After breaking in Burnham isn’t too keen on
carrying on the burglary with people in the house (according to Junior
they shouldn’t have moved in yet), but Raoul isn’t about to let things
stop now, and he’s the one packing heat.
Making a little too much noise, our three burglars wake up Meg who
scurries to wake up Sarah, and after creatively using the elevator
(you mean to say your house doesn't have an elevator?) to elude the
bad dudes, Meg and Sarah find themselves locked in the panic room,
leaving our three hoodlums in a quandary. Why? Because what they broke
into the house for is in the panic room, the room they can’t get into
unless Meg and Sarah come out.
As it turns out, Meg and Sarah do have to get out of the panic
room, and for good reason, developed nicely but not overdone. Sure,
there are some dumb things that happen in the movie, some "duh"
moments, but for the most part this is a great suspense movie,
although the ending is a little weak and predictable.
What drives "Panic Room", at least for me, is that each of the
characters fit their roles perfectly. Jodie Foster is almost always
great, and as the mom who will do anything to protect her daughter,
she is fantastic. Kristen does a decent job as the daughter who is
pissed mom and Dad had to get a divorce, but then supportive of mom.
But the winners of this movie really are the three burglars. Whitaker
is great as the family man kinda getting sucked into more than he
thought; Leto does a fine job as trying to be the ringleader but not
having the skills to do so, and Yoakam is downright creepy as the
henchman with the gun. For most of the movie he wears a ski mask,
which is creepy enough, but when the mask comes off, he plays sinister
to the hilt.
When all is said and done I really liked "Panic Room." It did drag
in a few spots, you’ve got to admit that our hoodlums aren’t too
bright, and the end was a little calculated once it got going, but
don’t let that let that stop you if you are a fan of a decent suspense
film with some really cool camera work. I’ll give "Panic Room" 4 stars
out of 5. Go ahead, pay full price and buy some popcorn.
That’s it for this one! I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!! |
