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Panic Room film review
PANIC ROOM
Running time: 118 mins
Starring: Jodie Foster, Forest Whitaker, Jared Leto, Dwight Yoakam, Kristen Stewart, Patrick Bauchau
A panic room is the modern equivalent of a castle's keep, a hidden room where homeowners can retreat for safety in the event of intruders. It's where Meg Altman (Jodie Foster) and her teenage daughter Sara (Kristen Stewart) bolt to when they discover their Manhattan house has some unwelcome visitors. Had she known that the three bumbling thieves would make Home Alone's pair look like skilled professionals, she needn't have rushed. Their farcical incompetence undermined their threat, rendering Panic Room an anaemic thriller with a scant regard for credibility.
With films like Se7en and Fight Club, director David Fincher clearly revels in dark, edgy material, but the use of dim, atmospheric lighting is not enough to induce shivers. Instead, it prompts the question: how can Meg afford to buy a multi-million dollar house and not afford to pay the electricity bill? The setting also invites one to ask why would she buy a vast home far more suited to staging a thriller than providing accommodation for only two people? But these are just two of many queries that arise from watching the risible Panic Room.
Recently separated from her wealthy husband, Meg and her diabetic daughter are enjoying their first night in their new house when she spots the men downstairs on one of the security monitors. The cautious Burnham (Forest Whitaker) is equally surprised, having been assured by the reckless corn-rowed Junior (Jared Leto), that the place was empty. "This is a great plan", defends Junior, "It's just got a slight twist". For Burnham, the twist becomes more than slight when he discovers Junior has brought his crazy friend Raoul (Dwight Yoakam) in on the job. It's clear from this point we're not dealing with larcenous maestros.
With Meg and Sara firmly ensconced in the panic room, their problems would appear to be over, except of course the object of the thieves' mission is in the room's safe. The constant bickering and the futile methods they adopt to get in the room make the men appear more comical than menacing, with Leto in particular showing a unbridled desire to go over the top. Fincher, who is only too ready to display his technical flair with long, complex tracking shots and strange camera angles, seems less adept at procuring good acting performances. Even the normally intelligent Foster is left floundering as she is reduced to such banalities as "This is not happening". As I surveyed the insipid spectacle before me, it was a sentiment I was inclined to share.
