<< Back 5/1/02 In the movies SMN Panic Room Director: David Fincher (“Fight Club”, “Se7en”) Cast: Jodie Foster, Kristen Stewart, Forest Whitaker, Dwight Yoakam Rating: R — violence and language The best way to understand the Jodie Foster thriller “The Panic Room” is to compare it to the Philly steak and cheese. Uncompromising in simplicity, this champion of cholesterol is comprised of shaved rib eye meat, onions, Cheez-wiz, and Italian bread. Nothing else. Yet folks of all natures (celebrities include John McCain, Brian Setzer, and Bill Clinton) will make stomach stops at Pat’s King of Steaks in South Philly. It’s reliable, simple, and satisfies every time. The same goes for the “Panic Room.” There’s nothing new to say here. No genres are being invented, and the shock value, is, well, more like a shock bargain. The reason “Panic Room” works is because director David Fincher borrows age-old recipes that still titillate. Fincher knows which ingredients work, and his kitchen is full of tasty morsels from master chefs like Alfred Hitchcock and Brian De Palma (although I’ll try not to hold “Mission to Mars” against him). The opening credit shots of dizzying highrises you see in “Panic Room” were a Hitchcock trademark (especially in the voyeur classic “Rear Window”); and the effects of slo-mo meshed with anxiety music is a classic Brian De Palma mannerism. Fincher’s ability to turn the screws (although we know what’s coming) is astute. I found myself — along with the other five patrons in the theater — yelling at the screen (I haven’t had the need to bellow at projections in years). Everything was predictable, but, damnit, I still couldn’t help putting pockmarks in my defenseless chair. It didn’t help that Fincher turns his camera into a microscopic roller coaster (thanks to the ingenious work of the two directors of photography, Conrad L. Hall and Darius Khondji). It rolls and tumbles through keyholes, down snaky phonelines, and through concrete walls to see what sinister plot is unfolding on the other side. The move opens up like visual chessboard. Meg Altman (Foster) is recently divorced from her tycoon husband, and is in desperate need of a home for her and her angst-ridden daughter, Sarah (Kristen Stewart). As luck would have it, a brownstone on New York’s Upper West Side has opened up. Mammoth in nature, the house is over 4,000 square feet, has an elevator (which can help the lethargic climb the four stories) and six working fireplaces. The mansion was recently the home of a reclusive billionaire. The odd thing is, the smarmy real estate woman tells Meg, is that they can’t find the truckloads of money he supposedly left behind. The chess strategy comes into play as the agent shows Meg and Sarah the innards of the domicile. The viewer knows that each part of the house will come into play when the bad guys show up. The king piece is the panic room — a state-of-the-art enclosure built by the late billionaire in case he was broken into. Claustrophobic in every sense, I couldn’t help but be reminded of Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado.” The room is encased in four inches of solid steel, has rations for weeks, eight TV screens monitoring every room, and an outside phone line that’s not connected to the rest of the house. Desperate and wealthy, Meg buys the house, and they move into the monolith within the week. The first night is wrought with thunder and lightning — a (predictable, but suspenseful) harbinger of things to come. When Meg and Sarah nestle down for the night, three dark figures approach the house, unaware of the human contents inside. They easily break in, and within minutes we know the story of each burglar. There’s Junior (Jared Leto), an idiot pretty boy who believes he’s in charge; there’s Burnham (Forest Whitaker) the smart and compassionate character; and finally, Raoul (a very slimy Dwight Yoakam), a masked henchmen who has a thirst for violence and upheaval. The arguments ensue immediately since Junior was supposed to make sure no one was living in the brownstone. Meanwhile, Meg has caught on to the clatter below, and she whisks her and Sarah into the confined fortress. Let the games begin. For the rest of the movie, Fincher applies puppet strings with little discretion. Sarah is claustrophobic. Burnham hates violence, which puts him at odds with the gun-toting Raoul. The inside phone is not hooked up (the movie would end if it did) and the hidden money is apparently in the panic room. It’s easy to discern that nothing good will come out of this. All the characters are typical of any crisis movie, but Fincher somehow makes the paint by numbers thriller look like a Picasso. Jodie Foster is simply incredible (when isn’t she?), especially as she transforms from mousy mother to a primal force of nature when forced to protect her young. “Panic Room” essentially boils down to who has the best strategies. Both sides (good and bad) are adept at trickery, but the winner is one with the most number of outsmarts (kind of like a demented “Home Alone”). And the audience has the fortune of watching the most entertaining (and shortest) chess match in history. Backstabbing, explosions, torture, and role reversals all have tactful moves on the board, and the winner (or is it winners?) is not clearly defined until the last piece is placed. It’s like all the thrillers I’ve seen before — ground up, mashed, and pulped into a new product that’s wonderfully familiar. Who says theft doesn’t have its advantages? If you’re real lucky, “Panic Room” may even stop your heart a time or two. Just like the Philly sandwich. Of course, neither one is exactly healthy, but they thoroughly nourish ... in an unsettling sort of way. (Hunter Pope can be reached at w.h.pope@worldnet.att.net.)