Panic Room (DVD Screening)

(Spoilers)

Panic Room has always been a movie that I have meant to watch but never got round to.  I only recently discovered that it is also directed by David Fincher who also directed my favorite film of all time, Fight Club.  This gave me the push to get round to watching it.

Home invasions are done so often in movies usually in two different styles – horror or action.  I think that this was trying to be a combination of the two but in the end it kind of wasn’t either because neither elements really came through that strong.  Despite this the initial scene in which the villains enter the house did have a very sinister feel about it.  However in terms of the action it was more an issue with the pacing rather than the actual action.  The best sequence was when Meg (Jodie Foster) left the panic room to get her cell phone, I liked the slow motion and the muting of the sound – this worked well.

In terms of the villains, I thought they were a bit rubbish however this was not through fault of the actors but the characters.  It was also fairly obvious that from the start Raoul was not to be trusted, so his actions didn’t come as much of a shock and much of the rest of the film was quite predictable as well.  However this didn’t stop me from enjoying it.  Foster was great and I loved it at the end when she went badass on the villains.

I would have liked to have seen Burnham’s (Forest Whitaker) character explored a bit more, as I would have liked to know why he needed the money as towards the end I actually wanted him to escape without being caught, as he had been kind to the family in the end.  A bit more depth to his character would have made this film more interesting as at times I thought that it was a bit boring.

BIGGEST FLAW – Pacing

BIGGEST ACHIEVEMENT – Action sequence in slow motion/muted sound

Panic Room was a pretty average action thriller, it had potential to be great but ended up just being ok, I think it will be a long while before I revisit this one.

Rating – 7/10