Director David Fincher has built up a track record over the last decade or so that is, overall, excellent. After a lame start with “Alien 3”, he followed up with his masterpiece, “Se7en”, which featured a compelling detective story and an edgy attitude, combined with one of the most wonderfully ballsy endings ever put on film. In short order came “The Game” and “Fight Club”, securing Fincher not only as an unpredictable and engrossing storyteller but a filmmaker with a genius for visual style.

In one sense, “Panic Room” seems almost beneath him simply because of its generally simple plot line, and it was surprising to see his name in the opening credits. In another, the movie looks totally and uniquely his.

The picture immediately introduces Meg (Jodie Foster), a woman who once was the trophy wife of a well-off New York businessman, but has been recently dumped by him in favor of this year’s model. With her pre-teen daughter, Sarah (Kristen Stewart) in tow, Meg purchases a nice brownstone on Manhattan’s Upper West Side and intends to go back to school, living off the alimony checks.

One feature of the house she’s not too comfortable with is the Panic Room, an impenetrable 8x10 mini-fortress that disguises itself as a walk-in closet. The room, apparently built by the previous owner, a paranoid old coot, is surrounded by thick steel on all sides, stocked with lots of freeze-dried food and water and has monitors hooked up to surveillance cameras all around the house. (While we’re at it, why not a Beretta 92F and some ammo?) Meg dislikes it mostly due to her slight case of claustrophobia, although Sarah seems fascinated by it (“My room- -Definitely my room”).

The room becomes infinitely valuable the very next night, of course, when three burglars intrude, forcing Meg and Sarah to take refuge in their little stronghold. The room has an extra phone line, but, darn it, there wouldn’t be a movie if Meg hadn’t forgotten to hook it up, would there?

The three crooks, wishing to recover a fortune from the Panic Room’s hidden safe, cover pretty much all the basic stereotypes: Burnham (Forest Whitaker) is the smart one who doesn’t want anybody to get hurt; Junior (Jared Leto) is the supremely dumb one who talks way too much; and Raoul (Dwight Yoakam, my favorite country singer) is the psychopath. Raoul is just a little smarter than Junior (although the difference is barely perceptible), but Raoul is far more dangerous: he’s brought a gun to the proceedings, which makes Burnham furious. He’s also angry because Junior assured him they were breaking into an empty house.

Because of that, complications ensue. Sarah requires a shot of insulin (kind of a cheap plot device, if you ask me), which forces Meg to race into the open for the syringe, as well as her cell phone.

A soulless movie engineer like Renny Harlin would have come up with all manner of ways to utilize the Panic Room, a couple of them even a little creative. Fincher, however, uses some restraint. Much more entertaining and effective than the Panic Room is Meg’s own ingenuity and resourcefulness, coupled with the fierceness of a mother bear protecting her cub. Foster gives her character the usual combination of intelligence, strength and wit.

Whitaker is always an intriguing, affecting choice as an actor, and he excels here. The best performance in the movie, though, is probably from Yoakam, who spends most of his screen time behind a ski mask; he’s scary with it on, and even scarier with it off. Occasionally, he’s also hysterically funny. At one point, Meg, in a reversal of fortune, is locked out of the Panic Room with Raoul’s pistol; Raoul and Burnham are locked inside with Sarah. To confuse them, Meg starts destroying all the surveillance cameras. As Raoul watches the monitors go blank, one by one, he asks cluelessly: “Why the hell didn’t WE do that?”

Raoul’s gun is the obviously the most menacing plot element of the film, and is a factor from beginning to end. As it gradually changed hands at least four times during the course of the story, building to an intense conclusion, I got a distinct impression: the weapon is only as dangerous as the hand holding it. The folks at Handgun Control, Inc. probably wouldn’t be too crazy about this picture.

“Panic Room” is definitely a formulaic crime story, but in the capable hands of Fincher and screenwriter David Koepp (“Jurassic Park”, “Carlito’s Way”), it becomes a cut above. Think what they could do with one of those silly Ashley Judd thrillers! If this is a “popcorn movie”, then it at least comes with a generous amount of tasty butter.




Recommended:
Yes

Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age