Panic Room (2002)

Genre

Thriller

Director

David Fincher

Country

USA

Cast

Jodie Foster, Kristen Stewart, Forest Whitaker, Jared Leto, Dwight Yoakam, Patrick Bauchau, Ann Magnuson, Ian Buchanan, Paul Schulze

Storyline

When three burglars break in their new home, Meg Altman (Jodie Foster) and her daughter Sarah (Kristen Stewart) take refuge in the house's safe room. What they don't know, however, is that what the three men are looking for is in that very room.

Opinion

Panic Room has everything it takes to be a solid thriller. It has a good cast, an interesting storyline, but most important it has David Fincher. Nobody does thriller like he does. Unfortunately, a quite terrible screenplay happened, and Panic Room ended up being a mediocre thriller.

Like I said, I was very interested in the storyline and, knowing Fincher, I was expecting an exciting, tense story with many twists along the way. Which of course did not happen. While it was a bit tense, the plot was pretty predictable, filled with holes and the twists weren't that jaw-dropping.

And since there's so little of a plot, the film ends up being quite boring. There still is David Fincher's typical tension but since the story is dragged, it feels like being trapped in a never-ending film. Maybe Fincher was going for that, I don't know.

Another problem is the characters. They are unrealistic, pretty stupid and annoying. Not to mention a few utterly pointless characters at the beginning of the film. They add absolutely nothing to the film. However, in spite of how badly they were written and how poor the dialogue was, the cast still managed to do a good job.

In addition, Panic Room also benefits from a truly beautiful camera work. It's incredibly how wonderful are some of the shots. But then again, this is Fincher, so it doesn't really come as a surprise.

2 comments :

  1. I watched this recently myself, and I agree that the camera work is the real star. I do like the cast but you're right in that none of them are given that much to do, except Dwight Yoakam, who chews up ever scene he's in. He's the shit.

    ReplyDelete