Enter PANIC ROOM, a dark, sharp thriller which showcases the talents of Jodie Foster and Forest Whitaker in a cat-and-mouse game between the new owner of a house and the builder of its security systems who is hoping to steal something the previous owner left behind: Whitaker and his crew break in, thinking the new occupants haven't yet moved in, and Foster has time to rush herself and her daughter into the house's Panic Room, an extremely secure high-tech saferoom: the room keeps the intruders out, but it also keeps their intended victims in.

Foster is brilliant as the claustrophobic mom who will do anything to keep her daughter safe, but the film comes up short when she makes choices that most of the audience will perceive as short-sighted at best and stupid at worst. Foster overcomes this script shortcoming by playing the choices convincingly--you can read the conundrum in her face and believe in her reasoning when she makes the poor choice.

It's a credit to Whitaker that his "villain" character remains sympathetic throughout--he's not the sort of terrorist-cum-robber that made Alan Rickman famous in DIE HARD. You find yourself hoping that some accord can be reached--that he can just get what he wants and get out safely. Unfortunately, his psychotic partners-in-crime make that an impossibility.

Fincher has always done an excellent job of taking us to the dark side of things, leading the camera into places that the human eye could never see. I'm not sure PANIC ROOM will have the staying power and rewatchability of FIGHT CLUB or SE7EN, but it's definitely the sort of taut thriller that's been missing from the A-movie circuit for years. Not quite a Popcorn Movie...more like a hint of Summer in early Spring.

The premise when first looked at is rather simple. Recently divorced mother Meg Altman (Jodie Foster) moves into a huge new house on Manhattan's West Side, which is not only enormous but has something most places don't; a panic room. This room is solid concrete, on top of steel, fixed out with surveillance cameras; in short nothing can get in, or out.

On their first night Meg and daughter Sarah (Kirsten Stewart), whose relationship has been strained since the divorce, are awoken by three criminals (Jared Leto, Dwight Yokam, and the socially minded Forest Whitaker) who are hell bent in entering the house. Thus Meg and Sarah run into the panic room hidden behind a mirror in the master bedroom, expecting the thieves will ransack the house and leave. The plot twists from here, as the criminals actually want the 22 million dollars in bearer bonds hidden in a floor safe in the panic room. What ensues is an intense pseudo game of `hide and seek' with Meg and Sarah trapped by the three criminals.

The characters that Fincher establishes are amazing. The film wouldn't have the same feel if Nicole Kidman (who was due to be cast) were in the role of Meg. It is the dichotomy Foster portrays between a sensitive, maternal Female, who is forced to react in a very masculine way. In this sense Foster plays a character much like Clarice in `Silence of the lambs', who's femininity in brought to the forefront but extenuous circumstances.

Perhaps the single thing that strikes the audience and appeals to them is Fincher's mind blowing camera work. He uses the camera like another member of the cast, as the importance he imbues on the camera. The viewer is taken place conventional rigs could never take the viewer before. Into locks, between banisters, even a spiraling shot down the staircase that can only be resembled to Hitchcocks shot in `Vertigo'. David Fincher is a director who truly understands film as a visual medium. Lets face it there are times where his idea's could have flopped in `Panic Room' when an entire room is reconstructed with CG then the camera moves through it could have looked really hokey... but it works to great effect.

My only criticism of the film is sometimes the pacing slows down a bit. Fincher's work always moves very quickly and I feel at times the middle of the film lagged a little; otherwise it was great.

`Panic Room' is a fantastic piece of modern cinema. A great thriller that will keep the audience of the edge of their seats. Fincher's masterful direction coupled with brilliant acting allows the film to be a stand out as one of the best this year.

I just want to remind them that "Panic room" is a FICTION MOVIE. THIS IS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE REAL. That's what enterteinment is about. "Panic room" is a thriller, right? So, in a thriller, the script is written in such a way that the viewers WILL BE THRILLED. Of course, the writers attempt to attain their script to reality as long as they can, but sometimes they have to forsake reality to provide their movie with some parts that will simply be transformed in scenes that will create on the audience the effect they expect.

I just want to know what do reviewers that gave poor rating to this movie on grounds of plot-incredibility think of movies like "Harry Potter", "Lord of the rings" and others alike. If they are coherent, they also despise these movies, and all they want to watch are czech-polish movies about the lives of two old seamstresses escaping Lithuania during the second world war (this is an example, I'm not saying that czech movies or polish movies are bad, they just usually are not action thrillers). What I want to say is, "Panic room" is good enterteinment, it's a movie that leaves you with your eyes wide open every scene, and you just want to know what's going to happen next. The acting is excellent, as well as director David Fincher, the action sequences are good... What more could you expect from a thriller? If thrillers were supposed to be real, there would be a Ferrari-Lamborghini chase through the streets of San Francisco every ten minutes, there would be a terrorist attack in O'Hare airport every hour, a subway-train wreck coming up in Fifth Avenue every week, etc.

Just relax and enjoy "Panic room". It's very cool.

Grade 8.8/10