Anyone who knows me knows that I like dark movies. Call me weird, call me a freak, but yes, I'm attracted to dark movies. And lemmie tellya, there's no one out there who serves his movies darker than director David Fincher. His list of directing credits include "Alien 3" (his feature film debut... though the story wasn't all that great, it was a great looking flick), "Seven" (one of my favorite movies of all-time, a masterpiece), "The Game" (a good movie, but being that it was the movie he made after "Seven," I expected more), and "Fight Club" (a classic). David Fincher is one of my favorite directors, and he never made a movie I didn't like, so I was really, really looking forward to "Panic Room." Then again, if David Fincher directed a movie about the lack of interest in championship bowling in Baltimore, I'd probably see it.
I think a lot of people are expecting some David Fincher camera acrobatics in this movie, but I was surprised to see that there isn't much. That's a good thing, though. If there's too much of it, it takes away from the experience of the movie. It's fine if it serves the purpose of the story, and the few times Fincher uses it, it's exactly for that purpose. He uses it sparingly, and uses it well, but the rest of the movie is a straight up suspense film. Very dark, very atmospheric, and very tense. It's sorta like David Fincher's version of an Alfred Hitchcock film. I like what Roger Ebert wrote about it. In his review, he compares "Panic Room" to a chess game, and that's a good analogy. It IS like a chess game, but I'd add that it's a chess game between the person who invented it and a person who's just learning how to play.
Though I like this movie a lot, I'm not so sure I like the ending. The ending is very good in the grand Hollywood tradition, it's the kind that makes people in the audience cheer. But that also means that it's predictable because the ending gives the people what they want, what they demand. Also, there's this two minute scene at the end that's completely useless. I coulda done without that. It seems like David Fincher wanted to let people relax a bit before leaving the theater, but I think it woulda been much more effective if he left it out.
"Panic Room" stars Jodie Foster, and she's excellent. There's a reason why she has two Oscars (one for "The Silence of the Lambs" and one for "The Accused"). It's interesting to note that Nicole Kidman was originally cast to play the role, but she had to back out because of a knee injury she got while making "Moulin Rouge." I love Nicole Kidman, but I honestly can't picture her in that role. I'm not saying that she'd do a bad job, I'm only saying that I can't picture it. I can only say what I thought of Jodie Foster, and I thought she was fantastic. Playing her daughter in the movie is Kristen Stewart (the only movie she was in prior to this one was one I never heard of called "The Safety of Objects"). I have no idea who she is, but she's very good. The three villains are played by Forest Whitaker (a great character actor who has been everywhere), Jared Leto (he recently starred in the great movie, "Requiem for a Dream"... this is his second time in a David Fincher movie, the first time being in "Fight Club"), and Dwight Yoakam (he's a country singer, but I've never heard his music... he was great in "Sling Blade"). All three of them are terrific, but Dwight Yoakam stands out. The guy is awesome.
Like I said, this movie was directed by David Fincher, and aside from the needless two-minute thing at the end, his directing is as great as you'd expect. The script was written by David Koepp, and it's a pretty good script. David Koepp wrote and directed "Stir of Echoes" and he helped write "Mission: Impossible," "Jurassic Park," "The Paper," and "Death Becomes Her." The guy is a pretty good writer, but I think his best is yet to come. By the way, David Koepp is a big reason that "Seven" got made. Years ago, writer Andrew Kevin Walker (who has a cameo in this movie as the sleeping neighbor) called David Koepp personally to try to get him to read his script, "Seven." Walker spoke to Koepp's assistant instead, but eventually, Koepp read the script, loved it, and got the script into the right hands. The rest is history.
Want more trivia? The original Director of Photography of "Panic Room" was Darius Khondji (who was also David Fincher's DP in "Seven"), but he was fired because the filming was taking too long (Khondji was replaced by Conrad W. Hall, a camera operator for "Seven" and "Fight Club"). Wanna know something else? Darius Khondji was also the Director of Photography for three movies directed by the great director of "Amélie," Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Khondji was the DP for his other films, "The City of Lost Children," "Delicatessen," and Jeunet's American film debut, "Alien: Resurrection," which is pretty coincidental since the "Alien" movie right before that one was directed by David Fincher.
"Panic Room" is a very entertaining, very stylish thriller that does a good job at keeping you at the edge of your seat. It's another really good movie by one of the best directors working today. It's not perfect, and it has some slow points, but it still kicks ass.
Scale of 1-10: 8