Panic Room
Cast
Jodie Foster as Meg Altman
Kristen Stewart as Sarah Altman
Forest Whitaker as Burnham
Dwight Yoakam as Raoul
Jared Leto as Junior
Directed by David Fincher
Rater #2 has Description and Review
Rater #1
Has not seen movie.
Rater #2
8/10. David Fincher's Panic Room begins with an uber-cool opening credit
sequence with the credits being superimposed onto buildings. They
even have reflections and shadows. In this stylized thriller, the
rest of the movie is also slick.
Meg Altman (Jodie Foster) is a recent divorcee who is looking for a
new house with her daughter Sarah (Kristen Stewart). They find a
giant house, complete with "panic room". What is a panic room, you
ask? It is a room engulfed in steel where you can hide and there is
not way you can be gotten to. Since this is a movie, theives have to
come on the first night that Meg and Sarah are in. And, of course,
what they are looking for is in the panic room.
Panic Room cannot be mistaken for an arthouse movie, or anything of
the type. It is a perfect example of a Hollywood movie. Bumbling
crooks, main female characters who look weak but inside are strong,
teens who are the opposite. In fact, we don't even know that Sarah
has diabetes until halfway through the movie. If screenwriter David
Koepp had had some more time to make characters, then maybe I
wouldn't have been so aback when she suddenly starts to have an
attack.
Panic Room doesn't slack on tense situations. Anytime when Meg or
anyone had to dart out of the room for a quick second (in slo-mo, of
course), then you feel like your heart is about ready to jump out of
your chest. Camera work by Conrad Hall and Darius Khondji was
exceptional. When they panned throughout the house, it may be
unnecessary, but it still looks wicked cool. It doesn't rely on split-
screens or quick cuts or half-second scenes, it just is smooth and
graceful.
Foster was pretty good as Meg, but she wasn't anything Oscar-worthy.
I thought that Stewart was uneven as her daughter, her feelings were
mixed and changed at the drop of a hat. The three criminals (Jared
Leto, Dwight Yoakam, Forest Whitaker) were pretty good and their
bickering looked like it wasn't staged. Many people have complained
about the ending. I'm one of them. It seemed abrupt and unlikely, but
it's a Hollywood movie. It doesn't have to be original. And the last
scene at the bench was unnecessary, two minutes of added time. It was
long enough already. I wished that they could have had the entire
movie take place in the house and only a couple characters, that
would have made it a more inviting premise.
All in all, Panic Room is a very tense movie that pales on characters
but still makes you be creeped out of your mind.
Rater #3
Has Not Seen Movie.
Rater #4
Has not Seen Movie.
Rated R for language and some violence.
Running time: 112 minutes
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