Stars: Jodie Foster, Jared Leto, Forest Whitaker, Dwight Yoakam, Holt McCallany, Ann Magnuson, Patrick Bauchau, Ian Buchanan, Kristen Stewart, Andrew Kevin Walker

Director: David Fincher

Summary: Meg Altman and daughter, Sarah, take sanctuary in her New York apartment's 'panic room' which is designed to act as a refuge in the event of a break in...

As David Fincher's PANIC ROOM begins, recently divorced Meg Altman (Jodie Foster) halfheartedly tours through an old New York City townhouse with her restless young daughter, Sarah (Kristen Stewart). Using money from her divorce settlement, the unhappy mother decides to buy the spacious home. The former abode of a wealthy eccentric, this townhouse contains an unusual extra feature, a supposedly impenetrable "panic room" equipped with surveillance monitors, a separate phone line, and other survival aids, where residents can hide in case of emergency. When three men--Burnham (Forest Whitaker, BLOODSPORT), Junior (Jared Leto, FIGHT CLUB), and Raoul (Dwight Yoakam, CRANK)--break into their new home, Meg and Sarah end up using the panic room much sooner than they could have possibly imagined. And, unfortunately for them, these intruders are not simple burglars; they possess knowledge that makes the situation much more perilous.
Hitchcockian in its confined setting and carefully doled-out suspense, Fincher's PANIC ROOM is more straightforward than his infamous FIGHT CLUB, though no less engaging. Foster (who replaced Nicole Kidman after she injured herself on the set of MOULIN ROUGE) gives her best performance since THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS. The thieves are equally compelling--Whitaker shines as a likeable, sad-eyed security expert; Leto provides comic relief as a talkative brat; and Yoakam is perfectly loathsome as an armed-to-the-teeth psycho. Although the film features some of Fincher's trademark hi-tech effects, its true bells and whistles are the excellent cast, the stunning photography, the moody score, and the simple yet thrilling story.

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An effective exercise in "confined cinema", Panic Roomis a finely crafted thriller that ultimately transcends the thinness of its premise. David Koepp's screenplay is basically Wait Until Darkon steroids, so director David Fincher (Seven, The Game) compensates with elaborate CGI-assisted camera moves, jazzing up his visuals.

A relocated New York divorcée (Jodie Foster) and her diabetic daughter (Kristen Stewart) fight for their lives against a trio of tenacious burglars (Jared Leto, Forest Whitaker, Dwight Yoakam) in their new Manhattan townhouse. They're safe in a customised, impenetrable "panic room", but the burglars want what's in the room's safe, so mother and daughter (and Koepp and Fincher) must find clever ways to turn the tables and persevere. Suspense and intelligence are admirably maintained, with Foster (who replaced the then-injured Nicole Kidman) relying on her Silence of the Lambsresourcefulness. It's not as viscerally satisfying as Fincher's previous thrillers, but Panic Roomdefinitely holds the viewer's attention. --Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com

Aspect Ratio:	2.40 Wide Screen, 16:9 Wide Screen
Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Special Features:	Director And Cast Filmographies, Panic Room Teaser Created By David Fincher
Subtitles:	Dutch, English, Hindi
Year:	2001
Release Date:	April 4, 2005
Runtime:	75 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	C 823 404 1
Keywords:	Panic, Room, General, Wide, Screen, Thriller
Genre:	Thriller