Director David Fincher (Fight Club, Seven) goes all Hitchcock on us, and the result is a brainy, suspenseful thriller. OK, so we never have much doubt about what will happen, but Fincher pulls out all the visual stops to crank up the heat in this tale of five people in a Manhattan house on one dark and stormy night. After her divorce, Meg (Foster) and her daughter Sarah (Stewart) move in to a swanky Upper West Side mansion. On their first night, they're invaded by three thieves (Whitaker, Leto and Yoakam) and quickly hide in the "panic room", a hidden bunker decked out modern security technology. What ensues is an intelligent and fierce standoff, as the burglars are after a fortune hidden in the secret room by the previous owners.

Fincher's first smart move (besides evoking Hitchcock's spirit with an eyepopping credit sequence) is to make the house itself a character in the story. His predatory camera work, combined with astonishing effects and stunning photography (by Conrad Hall and Daris Khondji), makes us feel the bricks and mortar personally. And then we have Foster, effectively adapting her cerebral persona to a claustrophobic thriller. We are right with her as she panics ... then regroups and tries to outsmart the bickering baddies. While the machinations of the plot are a bit contrived there's a sense of edgy, freewheeling violence that keeps it from becoming yet another predictable thriller, and keeps us laughing nervously from start to finish. But it's the film's visual accomplishment that's perhaps most notable--which may be a compliment or a criticism, because we're actively aware of the film's amazing cinematography; it calls attention to itself. So the film looks absolutely fantastic in every way--slick, inventive and perhaps a bit too clever. And definitely worth seeing on a big screen.

themes, language, suspense, violence

18.Mar.02