Panic Room

Panic Room is an effective and claustrophobic thriller which nevertheless does not rise above the average, despite David Fincher's skills as an image-maker. David Koepp's screenplay is too ordinary for that.

Recently divorced Meg Altman and her daughter Sarah find a dream house in New York, an old, luxurious townhouse on several floors. The house is also equipped with a "panic room", a secret and impenetrable room from which you can monitor the rest of the house should uninvited guests turn up.

Neither Meg nor Sarah had dreamt that they would be forced to take refuge in the panic room as early as the first night in their new home, but Meg sees no other way out when the burglars Burnham, Raoul and Junior suddenly appear in their living room. Luck is not on the "guests'" side, for they believe the house is empty, and what they are looking for is in the locked and sealed room. They cannot get in there, so by cunning they must lure the house's terrified occupants out of the room.

The night takes a heavy toll on everyone's nerves. Meg and Sarah are cut off from the outside world, so how are they to get help? Worse still, Sarah suffers from diabetes and has no access to her insulin. Outside, Burnham, Raoul and Junior begin to get on each other's nerves, for they by no means agree on how the situation should be tackled.

We could well have done without the character of Raoul, for the stereotypical role of sadistic maniac helps make the film unpleasant and needlessly violent. This is most evident in the violent final showdown, which looks like something we have seen before. The film's atmospheric set-up promises something more than banal vigilante drama.