Rating: 
Summary: FEELING A LITTLE CLAUSTROPHOBIC?
Review: For most of us our home is our castle, our refuge, our sanctuary. The place we go at the end of a hard day to relax, to sleep, somewhere safe and warm but at the back of our minds is always the fear of this sanctuary being compromised and our peaceful existence being shattered. This is the backdrop for David Fincher's latest dark and claustrophobic movie thriller 'Panic Room', where single mother (Jodie Foster), recently estranged from her very rich husband, moves into a dark but rather opulent five-storey brownstone on West 94th Street on the upper west side of Manhattan, with her daughter Sarah (Kristen Stewart). Apart from (surely) being too big for only two people to live in, the house comes complete with its own elevator, CCTV and an impenetrable panic room; somewhere safe to hide should the house ever be invaded. And of course inevitably on their first night in their new house that's exactly what happens and mother and daughter have to seek sanctuary in the aforementioned rather claustrophobic room. But here's the rub, what the robbers (Forest Whitaker, Jared Leto, Dwight Yoakam) want is in the panic room and the emergency insulin shot that the daughter Sarah urgently needs is outside the panic room, and so begins a battle of wits, with Meg and Sarah's desperate attempts to attract help, whilst the criminals (in between squabbles) come up with plan after plan to drive them from their seemingly impenetrable sanctuary. As Sarah's diabetes starts to send her into a hypo-glycaemic shock, Director Fincher (Alien 3, Seven, The Game, Fight Club) expertly cranks the feelings of danger urgency and claustrophobia up notch by notch. Although it would be fair to say that the cast of conventional characters are more than familiar; the gutsy mother and her rebellious daughter, the kindly first-time criminal (Forest Whitaker), the big-mothed idiot (Jared Leto) and the vicious psychopath (Dwight Yoakam), it must also be said that all the actors concerned bring depth, subtlety and believability to their performances, lifting their characters above and beyond stereotype. However, it is David Fincher's innovation backed up by his cinematographers, Conrad W Hall and Darius Khondji, which lift this movie above the average and ordinary, as in (what appear to be) unbroken shots, the camera swoops from room to room, down stairwells, up to skylights, along air ducts and through walls. All in all Panic Room is probably Director Fincher's most conventional film to date and certainly not as ground-breaking as Fight Club or Se7en or as clever as The Game but it is still a very enjoyable thriller, which bears many of his very dark and edgy hallmarks. If you like a good thriller in the tradition of Hitchock's Rear Window, this one is definitely for you! Four stars ****.
Rating: 
Summary: This is now my favourite movie
Review: This is a great movie, no ifs, ands, or buts. Took "Miracle Worker" from my favourite movie to second favourite. I highly recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: Fincher shows how it's done
Review: Terrific thriller from director David Fincher featuring another standout performance from Jodie Foster as a mother trapped with her daughter by intruders in the room of the title.It's all riveting stuff with Fincher using some really ingenious camerawork to tell the story.The Superbit encoding on this disc is marvellous-it really picks up every last bit of detail and the DTS track is an aural treat.I'll be watching this again very soon.
Rating: 
Summary: I think my IQ went negative while watching...
Review: I love movies, even bad ones. Even after watching a bad movie I usually have the pleasure of playing critic with my friends. "Panic Room" offers so little plot and such thin characters that we ran out of conversation material 15 minutes after the movie. We could have found more material to analyze in a test pattern. I did have a few laughs with this movie, but if I could get that two hours of my life back I would. The camera work is splendid but not enough to save this movie. Fincher, Foster and Whittaker are great - in other movies. Dwight Yuck-um should not quit his day job, and the actor who played the other thug has already faded from memory. I had to really think about this review because the "Home Alone" reference was already taken. If you watch this movie, treat it like a dark comedy B movie and you'll be OK.
Rating:
Summary: One Wild Rush
Review: This film starring Jodie Foster as a newly estranged wife moving into a huge and rather lonely looking multi-storied brownstone in Manhattan with her teenaged daughter had me unexpectedly sitting on the edge of my seat for the entire viewing time.
From the movie's trailers one pretty much knows what is going to happen--the house features a 'panic room' where the inhabitants can hide in a steel enforced room complete with security cameras and medical and food supplies in the case of a break-in. The break-in occurs, in this case by the desperate trio of the grandson of the former occupant played by Jared Leto, his more than anxious friend, Dwight Yoakam, and the security expert with the treacherous insider's knowledge who has built and installed panic rooms for other wealthy and paranoid clients played by Forest Whitaker
For two hours, we watch Jodie Foster outthink and try to out manuever these intrusive interlopers while pushing aside her own anxiety regarding her recent breakup and her diabetic daughter's not-so-silent adjustment to her new status in her father's life.
This is a good facsimile of a Hitchcockian thriller with really good performances, especially Forest Whitaker who always seems to play his roles with an extra big chunk of heart.
Rating: 
Summary: More holes in the plot than you can shake a stick at
Review: I was very disappointed in this movie. I don't like movies where I am scratching my head in wonder at why the characters do, or don't do certain things. This movie was so full of them that about halfway through I didn't even want to finish it, but I did. I was very surprised Jodie Foster did a movie like this. I thought she was much more selective in her material. I can't believe people here are saying it is her best. While her performace was great, the movie was certainly no where near the caliber of most of her other films.
Rating:
Summary: ...
Review: This movie [was just plain bad].The characters are allweak and not to mention mentally inferior.Especially the thieves.I mean seriously we are supposed to be scared of them and yet I was laughing at how stupid they were.And what's with Forest Whitaker's lazy eye?That was annoying.The ex-husband was a moron as well.I give this waste of money 1 star for the camerawork.But true movie fans know that it takes more than fancy camerawork to make a movie enjoyable....
Rating:
Summary: Panic Room is outstanding!!
Review: Panic Room is by far one of the best films I have seen this year. In fact it is one of the best thrillers I think I have ever seen. The acting is well done, and I think this is one of the best performances that Jodie Foster has given us since The Silence Of The Lambs!
Rating:
Summary: The Camera Tells The Story
Review: Stunning camera shots that transport the viewer down floors, over table tops and counter tops, through walls, vents, even keyholes, make this thriller as effective and superb as it is. Director David Fincher--and even more importantly, Directors of Photograghy Conrad Hall and Darius Khondji--craftfully allows the camera to become another character to narrate the story of a recently-divorced woman and her daughter desperately fighting for their lives against three menacing intruders. Jodie Foster's character evolves before our eyes, from a vulnerable woman whose marriage has just ended to a protagonist determined to protect her daughter at all costs. The three "burglars"--dangerous men who want what's inside the "Panic Room"--are masterfully played by Forest Whitaker, Dwight Yoakam, and Jared Leto. Indeed, Whitaker's character, whose fragile sense of compassion and decency is so instrumental to the end of this film, is particularly compelling. As wonderful as the actors are, the film succeeds through the lense of the camera. PANIC ROOM is a masterpiece in cinematography.
Rating:
Summary: This Movie was not all that I expected
Review: I thought that this was going to be a kind of scary movie. but it ended up being more funny than scary. The action was good. The plot was too simple and the script was a bit cheesy.There was also a lot of unnecessary crusing which cheapend the film. It had it's good parts but a few good parts are not enough to make a good film. So that's why I'm giving it three stars.
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