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Panic Room
**1/2
Cinema Releases - May 3, 2002
Rated on a 4-star scale. Certificate 15. 112
minutes. Directed by David Fincher. Written by David Koepp. Starring Jodie
Foster, Kristen Stewart, Forest Whitaker, Dwight Yoakam, Jared Leto, Patrick
Bauchau, Ann Magnuson, Ian Buchanan, Andrew Kevin
Walker.
The opening credits of "Panic Room"
feature skyscraper shots reminiscent of "North by Northwest"; the following
scene features an old-time New Yorker real estate agent, an assistant who
chats with the snappiness of a character from a classic newspaper movie,
and Jodie Foster in the kind of pointy glasses that even librarians have
not worn in more than half a century. Jump to the end of the picture, and
we can note that one of the closing shots is a clear reference to Stanley
Kubrick's "The Killing".
The 1950s ambience is there, of course, because
the director, David Fincher, is letting us know that this will be classic
suspense. The specifics of his movie, however, are staggeringly modern --
it's about Foster and her daughter moving into a large townhouse containing
an emergency hiding-place fitted with an automated steel door, a bank of
CCTV monitors, an intercom system and an independent phone line. And wouldn't
you know it -- as soon as they move in, the house gets robbed; Foster and
her daughter (Kristen Stewart) have to rush to the panic room and spend the
movie in claustrophobic tension as burglars terrorise them from the
outside.
Things develop into a chess game. Foster and Stewart
ain't surrendering their refuge no matter what; they're determined to use
whatever tricks they can come up with to scare their attackers away, even
after the phone line is rendered useless. The burglars, played by Forest
Whitaker, Jared Leto and Patrick Bauchau, decide that what they need is in
the panic room, and they'll do whatever it takes to scare the women out.
Let the strategising begin.
"Panic Room" is a very well made film -- Fincher's
camera swoops and droops and circles and drops, takes omniscient views from
above and around, glides through walls, floors and ceilings as if they're
not even there, peeps through a keyhole and keeps zooming until it gets to
doors down the block. It's showy, but in the best way, and it gives us a
good sense of bearing. The gloom of the photography wears us down successfully,
communicating the desperation of the characters -- it's not dark in a way
that seems moody, but dim in a manner that seems designed to deliberately
frustrate the viewer.
There are plot inconsistencies, most of them involving
the burglars; once we understand their situation, we don't understand why
they couldn't have robbed the house when it was on the market, or possibly
before it got on the market, or hell, actually bought it. Such questions
are overshadowed by our gratitude for the film's intelligence -- the thieves
have a detailed, specific dynamic that suggests backstories and motivations,
and Foster and Stewart do a good job of establishing a mother-daughter
relationship in the way they approach subtleties of throwaway dialogue. Whitaker
gives one of his best and most restrained performances in the kind of role
where you'd least expect it. Foster is forceful, adamant and strong -- great
actors usually do action movies because they need to pay the bills, but Foster
lays out all of her muscles and guts.
And yet I give the film only two-and-a-half stars
out of four. Well, the film did exhaust me, just not in the right way. There
are moments of extraordinary power, such as the moment in which Foster has
to dart out of the panic room for her cellphone and escape back inside within
a matter of seconds... but in general "Panic Room" doesn't generate a lot
of tension. Perhaps the problem is that Fincher is better at compressing
convoluted plots ("Seven", "The Game", "Fight Club") than spinning out simple
ideas. The particulars of this movie are smart and engrossing, but they clutter
our attention and prevent us from being wound up. The shallow moments end
up being the most thrilling. Recall John Carpenter's "Assault on Precinct
13", which was comparatively shallow, but also terrifying. "Panic Room" is
a movie to be admired. Just don't expect to move to the edge of your seat
all that much.
COPYRIGHT©
2002 Ian Waldron-Mantgani
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