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Panic Room
2001
As David Fincher's PANIC ROOM begins, recently divorced Meg Altman (Jodie Foster) halfheartedly tours through an old New York City townhouse with her restless young daughter, Sarah (Kristen Stewart). Using money from her divorce settlement, the unhappy mother decides to buy the spacious home. The former abode of a wealthy .. Read more
| Starring | Jodie Foster, Jared Leto, Forest Whitaker, Dwight Yoakam |
|---|---|
| Director | David Fincher |
| Genres | Thriller |
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Panic Room
As David Fincher's PANIC ROOM begins, recently divorced Meg Altman (Jodie Foster) halfheartedly tours through an old New York City townhouse with her restless young daughter, Sarah (Kristen Stewart). Using money from her divorce settlement, the unhappy mother decides to buy the spacious home. The former abode of a wealthy eccentric, this townhouse contains an unusual extra feature, a supposedly impenetrable "panic room" equipped with surveillance monitors, a separate phone line, and other survival aids, where residents can hide in case of emergency. When three men--Burnham (Forest Whitaker, BLOODSPORT), Junior (Jared Leto, FIGHT CLUB), and Raoul (Dwight Yoakam, CRANK)--break into their new home, Meg and Sarah end up using the panic room much sooner than they could have possibly imagined. And, unfortunately for them, these intruders are not simple burglars; they possess knowledge that makes the situation much more perilous.
Hitchcockian in its confined setting and carefully doled-out suspense, Fincher's PANIC ROOM is more straightforward than his infamous FIGHT CLUB, though no less engaging. Foster (who replaced Nicole Kidman after she injured herself on the set of MOULIN ROUGE) gives her best performance since THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS. The thieves are equally compelling--Whitaker shines as a likeable, sad-eyed security expert; Leto provides comic relief as a talkative brat; and Yoakam is perfectly loathsome as an armed-to-the-teeth psycho. Although the film features some of Fincher's trademark hi-tech effects, its true bells and whistles are the excellent cast, the stunning photography, the moody score, and the simple yet thrilling story.
| Starring | Jodie Foster, Jared Leto, Forest Whitaker, Dwight Yoakam, Holt McCallany, Ann Magnuson, Patrick Bauchau, Ian Buchanan, Kristen Stewart, Andrew Kevin Walker |
|---|---|
| Director | David Fincher |
| Studio | COLUMBIA TRI-STAR HOME VIDEO |
| Run time | DVD: 1 hr 47 mins |
| Certificate | |
| Collections | 100 Top Thrillers |
| Genres | Thriller |
| Language | DVD: English |
| Hearing-impaired | None |
| Subtitles | DVD: English, Hindi, Portuguese, Spanish |
| Released | DVD: 19 Jul 2004 Production year: 2001 |
| Format | DVD |
Panic Room (3 discs) (2001)
Or you can rent each disc individually:
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Sign up Panic Room - Feature (Disc 1)
Features the Widescreen Edtion of the movie...
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Sign up Panic Room: Bonus Features 1(Disc 2)
Features an inside look at the pre-production of Panic Room ...
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Sign up Panic Room: Bonus Features 2 (Disc 3)
Features an inside look at the post-production of Panic Room...
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Critics' reviews (6)
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Following up the superlative Fight Club was always going to be a Herculean task for director David Fincher. It's little surprise, then, that from its innovative title sequence onwards, this dark thriller bristles with the nervous energy of a film-maker desperate to succeed. Here, Fincher exploits modern society's home-security paranoia, as a bunker-like safe room becomes a source of escalating horror for a mother (Jodie Foster) and daughter trapped by thieves in their New York brownstone. Though the plot is formulaic, it's ruthlessly executed, with the tension building to claustrophobic levels. However, Fincher seems obsessed with breakneck camera movement and unconventional angles, which means at times his extraordinary visual style gets in the way of the action. Fortunately, this doesn't overshadow the cast: Foster is particularly fine as the gutsy heroine, while Forest Whitaker gives a poignant performance as one of the intruders. Ultimately, this is slick and sure entertainment, yet you can't help feeling that Fincher could have done so much better.
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The camera prowls, swoops, glides and slips through small spaces in an attempt to enliven this dingy, claustrophobic thriller that becomes increasingly clichéd, predictable and corny, so that all suspense quickly leaks away.
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Most helpful member's review
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7 out of 9 people found this review helpful
Taut
David Fincher's taut claustrophobic nerve-shredding thriller - Jodie Foster plays Meg,recently divorced and moving into an enourmous Manhattan town house with her teenage daughter Sarah(Kristen Stewert) and discovering at the centre of the house a panic room - mega wealthy owners build these so if you are burgled you close the re-inforced steel doors and the bad guys can't get in.
On their first night in the bad guys turn up,thinking the house is empty and are after several million dollars left in a safe by the previous deceased owner - Meg and her daughter flee into the panic room but have one major problem - the only thing the bad guys want is contained in that room - what should have been a place of safety has become a battleground.
Fincher constructs this like a game of chess - each move the bad guys make is matched by a counter move by Foster who although initially terrified begins to see ways of turning the sitiation to her advantage.
Soon things are spiralling out of control and the psychological pressure that Foster is under is mirrored by the pressures on the bad guy's.
Jared Leto plays Junior who is all bravado but soon begins to crumble with Forrest Whittaker as Burnham who designs these rooms for a living - unfortunatly Junior has brough along Raoul ( a creepy Dwight Yokum)who becomes increasingly unstable as things progress.
Soon the pressure is mounting and cracks appear between them - how it all works out I will leave but I found myself feeling increasingly sweaty as things progress.
Foster is exellent - initially vurnable but realising that she can control events(up to a point) and all 3 bad guys are differtiated by their different approaches.
The use of the large rambling darkened house is very good - Fincher directs with the intensity of Hitchcock or Polanski and the use of under-lighting by Conrad Hall and Darius Konji adds to the creepy atmosphere.
It did suprisingly poorly at the box office - Finchers first dud really since Alien 3 which is a shame because its a cracking little movie and well worth the rental. -
Most recent members' review
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3 out of 4 people found this review helpful
Panic Room
I really enjoyed this film. Jodie Foster is as wonderful as ever, the plot was much better than I was expecting despite the limited scope of the movie and the is an air of genuine suspense throughout.
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As David Fincher's PANIC ROOM begins, recently divorced Meg Altman (Jodie Foster) halfheartedly tours through an old New York City townhouse with her restless young daughter, Sarah (Kristen Stewart). ... -