PANIC ROOM  **1/2

Reviewed 3/29/02

Certainly David’s Fincher’s newest project could not surpass his previous, FIGHT CLUB, in ambition, but PANIC ROOM is strictly by the numbers.

The divorcee of a pharmaceutical tycoon, Meg Altman (Jodie Foster) and her androgynous daughter, Sarah (Kristen Stewart), move into a spacious Manhattan Upper West Side brownstone (it’s a mansion by most New Yorkers’ standards).  The real estate was once home to a recently deceased wealthy individual whose fortune is now tied up in court battles among the heirs.  One such heir, the dim-witted Junior (Jared Leto), knows that millions are hidden in a panic room in the house, and he means to steal it.  Enlisting the aid of a man who installs such rooms for a living, Burnham (Forest Whitaker) and a cold-blooded maniacal bus driver, Raoul (Dwight Yoakam), Junior breaks in on Meg and Sarah’s first night in the house.  This bungling threesome of thieves can’t keep Meg and Sarah from fleeing into the panic room and locking them out of the only space in the house that matter to them.

Coming from Fincher, the movie is expectedly stylish with loads of “impossible” tracking shots and atmospheric lighting.  The thriller content however is overly familiar, and the movie never recovers from an extremely clumsy opening exposition introducing the brownstone, but little in the way of character.  Numerous contrivances do not enhance the suspense precisely because they are so obvious.  It is clear where the movie is supposed to go, and one just checks off the list of foreshadowed plot devices – Sarah’s diabetes, Meg’s cell phone, Raoul’s being a psychopath, the use of an elevator introduced at the beginning.  The movie makes little of Meg’s claustrophobia after a blatant set-up perhaps with the understanding that milking another handicap in addition to Sarah’s diabetes would be enough.  Furthermore, when Meg’s ex-husband arrives on the scene, Fincher and writer David Koepp give him nothing to do.  Even the relationship between him and Meg is not furthered in any interesting fashion.  Among the performances, only Forest Whitaker stands out as a character with more than one dimension of humanity. 

Some genuine moments of suspense never quite overcome the stolid dialogue and contrived plot.  PANIC ROOM is definitely watchable, but also imminently forgettable afterwards.