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Room Without a View
Panic Room is an energetic cat-and-mouse thriller starring the very talented Jodie Foster as Meg Altman. It’s not just an ordinary thriller, but an above-average one at that. David Fincher (The Game and Fight Club) directs Foster in her first film since her hiatus. Her last film before Panic Room was Anna and the King.
Fincher does as much as he possibly can with writer Koepp’s satisfactory screenplay. However, the film does what thrillers should do. Panic Room
keeps you enthralled in suspense and has your eyes locked on the screen. There is a bit too much comedic relief for my taste with Jared Leto’s character, Junior, the “stupid” burglar. Forest Whitaker plays Burnham, the lazy-eyed, kind-hearted burglar. The other burglar is masked through most of the movie. No one cares about him, but he has the job of being the mean one.
The burglars’ goal: To get into the panic room where a safe lies under the floorboards.
The problem: Meg and her tom-boyish daughter have locked themselves inside. The burglars come up with some good ideas. But so does Meg. It’s a battle of minds.
At times, Panic Room is very reminiscent of Stephen King’s Cujo, where a mother and her son are trapped in their car with a killer dog patrolling around the vehicle. Fincher does some great things with the camera and gives us a nice, electrifying ride throughout.
It’s a bit of a blah at the end. All this chess play and intelligent fighting between Meg and Burnham, yet at the end you feel like the loser simply knocks over their king before the game finishes.
Good popcorn flick! B
