neumu [ cinematronic ]




	Panic Room
	David Fincher Jodie Foster, Forest Whitaker, Dwight Yoakam, Jared Leto 2002 Widescreen; closed caption; English, French audio tracks; French, English subtitles; scene selections; theatrical trailer.		Home invasion is the hook in "Panic Room" — a Jodie Foster vehicle aided by the dark visual style of its director David Fincher. Foster plays a well-off Manhattan mom whose marriage has fallen apart. Now, she and her pubescent daughter are moving into a spectacular, multi-story brownstone with a unique feature: an unassailable, hidden chamber, dubbed a "panic room," for safekeeping. But mother and daughter move into the new house on the very night that three thieves target it for a break-in. The acting is faultless from Foster and, as the robbers, Forest Whitaker, Dwight Yoakam and Jared Leto. Still, when all is said and done, it's pretty much a conventional "Get out of the house!" scare-fest where people do dumb things. Having made his name with the extreme psychological thrillers "Fight Club" and "Seven," Fincher has raised the bar, and "Panic Room," for all of its craftsmanship, falters. There's plenty of thriller, but it's short on the psychology that gave texture to Fincher's other films.