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#262 - Panic Room
David Fincher, 2002
A mother and daughter move into an upscale New York townhouse with a built-in panic room left over by the previous owners, which causes trouble when a trio of thieves comes looking for the valuable contents of the room.
Out of all David Fincher's films, this is probably the one with the least interesting premise, but that doesn't automatically make it the worst. It's a pretty basic plot by Fincher standards - normal people move into a house, bad guys want to break into the house because of reasons, simmer for two hours. At least Fincher, who is quite the hypercompetent journeyman director, is able to assemble some decent talent on both sides of the camera to keep things sufficiently interesting for two hours. Jodie Foster makes for a good protagonist as the recently-separated single mother trying to take care of her preteen daughter (Kristen Stewart) as they move into a new place. Unfortunately, on their first night the place is invaded by three crooks - Forest Whitaker's conflicted expert, Jared Leto's short-tempered leader, and Dwight Yoakam's disturbingly calm professional - who are looking for something that just so happens to be hidden in the panic room where Foster and Stewart take refuge during the home invasion.
While Panic Room does have a lot of Fincher's usual visual flourishes (most notably that continuous computer-generated long shot early in the film that glides throughout several of the house's stories), it does struggle a bit to fill out its running time with anything to distinguish it from its peers - especially when it comes to the more implausible moments that seem very much in like with typical thriller fare. Whitaker gets the most to work with as a constructor of panic rooms who at least has sympathetic motives to give him depth, as is Yoakam as the most vicious villain in the group. Everyone else is merely serviceable, even Foster. Panic Room is definitely one of Fincher's weakest efforts (if not the weakest, though I'm not sure I'd go that far just yet), but it's still a fairly passable thriller that has some alright performances and the Fincher touch, both of which are factors that elevate it beyond its genre trappings.
David Fincher, 2002
A mother and daughter move into an upscale New York townhouse with a built-in panic room left over by the previous owners, which causes trouble when a trio of thieves comes looking for the valuable contents of the room.
Out of all David Fincher's films, this is probably the one with the least interesting premise, but that doesn't automatically make it the worst. It's a pretty basic plot by Fincher standards - normal people move into a house, bad guys want to break into the house because of reasons, simmer for two hours. At least Fincher, who is quite the hypercompetent journeyman director, is able to assemble some decent talent on both sides of the camera to keep things sufficiently interesting for two hours. Jodie Foster makes for a good protagonist as the recently-separated single mother trying to take care of her preteen daughter (Kristen Stewart) as they move into a new place. Unfortunately, on their first night the place is invaded by three crooks - Forest Whitaker's conflicted expert, Jared Leto's short-tempered leader, and Dwight Yoakam's disturbingly calm professional - who are looking for something that just so happens to be hidden in the panic room where Foster and Stewart take refuge during the home invasion.
While Panic Room does have a lot of Fincher's usual visual flourishes (most notably that continuous computer-generated long shot early in the film that glides throughout several of the house's stories), it does struggle a bit to fill out its running time with anything to distinguish it from its peers - especially when it comes to the more implausible moments that seem very much in like with typical thriller fare. Whitaker gets the most to work with as a constructor of panic rooms who at least has sympathetic motives to give him depth, as is Yoakam as the most vicious villain in the group. Everyone else is merely serviceable, even Foster. Panic Room is definitely one of Fincher's weakest efforts (if not the weakest, though I'm not sure I'd go that far just yet), but it's still a fairly passable thriller that has some alright performances and the Fincher touch, both of which are factors that elevate it beyond its genre trappings.