Panic Room

Fincher has established himself as a director with a specific reputation: hard-nosed, edgy fare heavy on style and commentary. Sometimes his characters don't always mesh perfectly, and sometimes there are glaring directorial omissions. But his films, nonetheless, have achieved a sort of love-hate following. Many loathe the idiosyncracies of Fight Club or the duality of The Game. Many revere those films with a passion. Whatever the case, Fincher has slightly deviated from his seemingly pre-destined path and made a film that is less edgy and more formulaic. But when following the typical hunted-becomes-hunter formula, Fincher has crafted a suprisingly effective suspense thriller that accomplishes most of what it aimed for.

Panic Room is nowhere close to as edgy as his previous films, and there seems to be no ulterior motive behind it. In keeping with one aspect of his usual productions, the film is heavy on darkness-enveloped style. He seems to have expanded his technical realms a little further than Fight Club (perhaps too much so), but his story is too full of obvious holes to fully capture the audience. When we hear the burglars speaking at regular volumes while a mother and daughter attempt to sleep just two stories above, the credibility line has been crossed. This is an obvious director mistake. Fincher should have contained Jared Leto's energetic performance more than he did, allowing us to get a bigger sense of urgency. But more often than not, I was too enveloped in the atmosphere of the film to care.

The two directors of photography (Darius Khonji allegedly left mid-production - Conrad Hall remained) do absolutely splendid work. The house becomes a claustrophobia-inducing temple because of the white-washed walls. The panic room itself becomesa foreboding jail cell. The way in which the house is shot mirrors the condition of the central characters.

There is one genuinely fantastic scene, and that scene will be apparent when you see the film. It's obvious that the audience I was with was very into the proceedings because they would audibly gasping and occasionally shouting encouragements to the characters on screen especially during this particular scene. When there is crowd interaction like this, you know that the film is being appreciated.

Panic Room falls several notches below several of Fincher's previous films simply because the story is not ambitious enough. It's glorious in the stylistic sense and is surely a good suspense ride but it doesn't have the intellect that we're used to when viewing Fincher's work. From the innovative opening credits to the last frame, Fincher's film is good cinema, and is definitely worth seeing.

On a scale of 1 to 10 skyline titles : 7