Who the fuck is Raoul?

On Tuesday night I finally caught up with Panic Room at the cinema. And no, the title doesn't refer to the England midfield, but to a secret enclave that apparently rich Americans with more money than perspective have been building into their houses so they have somewhere to escape to in the wake of a nuclear war or a visit from the inlaws. It is into such a room that mature student Jodie Foster hides with her spunky daughter when three inept burglars (headed up by Jared Leto) break into her house in the middle of the night. Smart move you might think, but there are a few problems. What the burglars are looking for is inside the panic room itself and Jodie's cellphone and her daughter's insulin have been left elsewhere in the house.

And so a cat-and-mouse scenario is set up featuring a damsel in distress within a confined space (cf. Wait Until Dark; Dead Calm; The Others). Yet the combined talents of Spiderman screenwriter David Koepp; Se7en director David Fincher and Academy Award winner Jodie Foster add juuust enough fresh ingredients to the mix to make this hokum but class hokum. Aside from the vertiginous camerawork the film is free from pretension and the action zings along fast enough that you don't really have the time to ponder the occasional flaws in logic in the plot. The film's only real letdown is a clumsy ending that lacks the expected killer punch and which also seems a little ethically muddled. It's an edge-of-your-seat ride until it gets to that point though so it still gets a Parallax View recommendation.

Related link: Images and House Blueprints from Panic Room.