The movie fits into a standard plot model where the happy professional couple has their life uprooted by depraved outsiders. Like Mel Gibson in "Ransom" or Harrison Ford in "Frantic", Michael Douglas has to discover if he has the grit to fight to the death for the ones he loves. Dr. Nathan Conrad (Michael Douglas) has to uncover a 6-digit code from the memory of one of his patients, an paranoid, psychotic,18-old Elizabeth Burrows (Brittany Murphy). He has 8 hours to do this or master criminal Patrick Koster (Sean Bean) will kill his daughter. Meanwhile, Nathan's wife, Aggie (Famke Janssen) is trapped in bed with a broken leg and must endure Koster's goons watching her every move through surveillance equipment.
It the plot developed from there, this would be a pretty good movie. Unfortunately, the density of the plot is encumbered with two side storylines. One concerns a doctor friend of Nathan's, Jerald (Oliver Platt), who has an agenda of his own. The second involves police detective Sandra Cassdy (Jennifer Esposito), who is investigating a series of homicides that are tied to Koster. Neither of these storylines help the movie and neither character is important to the events in the movie.
Michael Douglas presents a crebible effort in making us believe him as the innocent man trapped in a life or death situation. Douglas has made roles like this his own, and redeems them by just staying on this side of the overacting line. Sean Bean revels in the role of the relentless, hardened killer. He's just radiates malevolence. The less said about the other acting performances, the better. The only other redeeming quality of the movie is Mark Isham's soundtrack. It's a pity that the director couldn't use the tension building music to forward the suspensefulness of the film.
Don't Say a Word suffers like so many Hollywood thrillers. The plot has been dumbed down and preposterous elements are injected in the belief that the audience won't accept anything else. The film doesn't produce any compelling tension between the action scenes to keep the audience engaged, and, thus they have no choice but to notice the gaping plot holes. There's a diffence between racing through a thriller and wallowing in it.
Rating: 2 stars (out of 4)