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Panic Room
on DVD (2001)
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| 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: |
107 mins |
| Certificate: |
 |
| Collections: |
100 Top Thrillers |
| User collections: |
MY LOVE FILM RENTALS, panic room, jackal |
| Genres: |
Thriller |
| Languages: |
English |
| Hearing-impaired: |
None |
| Subtitles: |
English, Hindi, Portuguese, Spanish |
| Released: |
19/07/2004
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| Also Available on: |
 |
Brief synopsis of 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.
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All DVDs in this series
Panic Room - Feature
Features the Widescreen Edtion of the movie...
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Panic Room: Bonus Features 1
Features an inside look at the pre-production of Panic Room
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Panic Room: Bonus Features 2
Features an inside look at the post-production of Panic Room...
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Related
Critics Reviews
Radio Times
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.
Halliwell's Film Guide
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.
USA Today
"...Efficiently directed, fabulously shot....Photographed in the darkest visible tones by two of the industries greatest, ROOM and its tilting/panning camera have a blast zipping through and around a dozen large rooms..."
See all 6 Critics Reviews »
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