Panic Room – Review

David Fincher is one of the best directors out there, and to me, this is one of his least interesting, and yet it’s still worth watching. Divorced mother Meg Altman (Foster) finds an extravagant home in New York, complete with tons of space, multiple floors, plenty of bedrooms, and a hidden chamber, dubbed a “Panic Room.” The former owner had it installed, and the realtor assures Meg there is nothing else around like it. Meg’s daughter Sarah (Stewart) approves.

They move in, and enjoy the home for the most part. The Panic Room comes complete with security monitoring, so Meg doesn’t mind that part. She struggles to properly program things, and on a dark and rainy night gives up and goes to bed.

Enter a crew of thugs: Junior (Leto), Burnham (Whitaker) and the menacing Raoul (Yoakam). They assume the home is empty, as escrow usually takes “weeks or many working days,” or something like that. Junior has a tip that there is some money to get in the home, so they are armed to break in.

The set-up is primed for tension, and Panic Room delivers just that. Many of the plot set-up elements are used well, and some of the characters are so chaotic that it is hard to tell what they may wind up doing. The acting is strong between all parties, and the basic plot is enough for the runtime which mostly whips by.

While the story itself may not be that extraordinary, the sleek presentation and great cast makes Panic Room stand out from a typical thriller. Fincher is A+ behind the camera, so he probably got the most possible out of the script.