PANIC ROOM

Reviewed by Sam Hatch

Allow me to begin by stating that David Fincher is one of my favorite film directors. I enjoyed the style of Alien3 enough to go see his sophomore film Se7en with no foreknowledge of what it was about. I just heard that Fincher directed it and I was sold. Unfortunately the less than stellar Michael Douglas vehicle The Game followed the brilliance of that film. That said, Fincher did wonders with the script he had, and The Game would have been truly horrendous in the hands of a Michael Bay or Simon West. Luckily, he did the one thing I never expected - he topped his work on Se7en with the best film of the decade, Fight Club.

So now the (soap) bar has been set even higher – Fincher has two masterworks under his belt, and one is still rather fresh in memory. Can he top himself again? Would you be surprised if the answer was no? Neither would I. Finch has opted to lens another simple story, a la The Game, but this time the script (by Jurassic Park and Spider-Man scribe David Koepp) is much more solid even in its stripped down form. One could imagine that Fincher took on this project for one reason only – to go nuts with CGI and flashy camerawork. But at least he's got a gripping yarn to do it with. But before the yarn begins, the flashiness prevails during the jaw dropping opening credits, consisting of Manhattan glamour shots with enormous photo realistic cast and crew titles hovering ominously in the air. The final credit for David Fincher himself looms over Central Park like some sort of malevolent spaceship/nameplate. (And reminded me of the music video for the song My Kingdom by Future Sound of London.)

The film has been compared to a chess game, and if so then the first act is pure setup. Jodie Foster (replacing Nicole Kidman who injured herself on set and fled to make Moulin Rouge) is the recently divorced Meg Altman, now a fabulously wealthy single mom thanks to her philandering husband (who just happens to be a bazillionaire with a guilty conscience). In the search for a proper Manhattan abode for herself and her tomboyish teen daughter Sarah (Matthew Sweet lookalike Kristen Stewart), her friend Lydia (played by Ann Magnuson) introduces her to a one of a kind townhouse/brownstone concoction aptly labeled a ‘townstone'. (Twin Peaks fans may delight to see Ian Buchanan playing the realtor).

Said townstone is the true star of the film, and the expository dialogue during these early scenes serves a higher calling than mere character development – they're telling us the rules of the game. As Buchanan gives Meg a tour of the premises, he's really a surrogate emcee showing the audience the lay of the land before the game begins. And like all great showbiz games, there's a special catch – not only does the building sport multiple levels and an elevator, but there's the title-referenced panic room adjacent to the master bedroom. The previous tenant, being an overly paranoid (or was he?) coot, saw fit to equip his house with a steel coffin of a room to hide in during any potential robbery - complete with a bank of video monitors overseeing all movement within the house.

That done, we're treated to a few more character bits involving the nasty divorce, and move swiftly to the reveal of one character's Achilles' Heel – diabetes. If you think you can figure out what will eventually transpire you will probably be correct. Once everyone settles in for a good night's sleep, the pieces from the opposing side of the chessboard arrive.

What follows is a tour de force piece of indulgent filmmaking as Fincher pushes cameras through floors, walls, in between railing dowels, and (the one bit that went over the top for yours truly) through the space between the handle and body of a coffee pot in the kitchen. Much of the visual trickery utilizes the field of photogrammetry, which was also used to great effect in Fight Club.

What this whirlwind tour of the house reveals to us is that there's a group of three darkly clad people trying their best to gain entrance into the house (or playing field if you will). Once they do, the real game begins, and the tension ratchets up as we wait for something foul to befall our two damsels in distress.

The bad guys are fantastic, with Fincher regular Jared Leto returning to get yet another horrible hairdo at the hands of our director. He plays Junior, a spoiled rich kid slash wannabe gangster who knows that there is something of value within the house. Forrest Whitaker is incredible as the technically adept Burnham, and he goes a long way to ensure that the villains of the piece retain an element of humanity. Dwight Yoakam still manages to steal the show as Raoul with his terse psychotic delivery. We think we know what Junior and Burnham are all about, but Yoakam is the wild card. With this guy around, anything can happen.

And so the mayhem commences. Fincher and Koepp make great use of the playing field, and all of the possibilities surrounding the panic room itself are explored. People are hiding in it, people are trapped in it, people want to get in it, and people want to get out of it. Just when you think that they've run out of ideas, Koepp pulls another ace from his sleeve and keeps it interesting.

I must also mention the excellent cinematography from Conrad W. Hall (Se7en master-lenser Darius Khondji gains a co-credit, but apparently was removed from the film early on). Many of the scenes border on underexposure, and the drab colorless look of the building is somehow rendered beautiful through the camerawork. Empty, underlit rooms have never looked this great before.

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