Grade:  B

Director:  David Fincher		Released:  March 2002
Writer:  David Koepp		MPAA Rating:  R
Players:  Jodie Foster, Forest Whitaker		Running time:  112 minutes

Ratings System

Panic Room opens with a very slick titles sequence, and continues to be slick right up to the end credits.  The camera work is slick, the cinematography is slick, the plot devices are slick ... you get the picture.  Not to say that I don't enjoy a slick bit of filmmaking, on the contrary, Panic Room is a nice piece of enjoyable entertainment.

To go into detail about exactly what happens in this film is to spoil the fun of it.  It's a cat and mouse game between the new tenants of a house, and the team of crooks who invade the house in search of treasure.  The tenants pretty quickly find themselves safe and sound within the panic room, but the crooks need to get them out of the room.  The standoff begins.  Many of the things that occur next are very clever, others are very cliche.  But that's the name of the game in thrillers these days.  So much has already been done in film, it's a trying task to create original situations that can truly create audience tension.

Panic Room is fun, and that's all it's really trying to be, I think.  I'm sure I'll see it again for Forest Whitaker, if nothing else.  I really like Forest as an actor.  He has that *something* that makes him stand out on screen, and makes you care about him, like maybe he's one of your childhood friends all grown up.

- crocoPuffs