Home Alone IV – The Adult Version (Panic Room (DVD))

Member Name: merv

Product:	Panic Room (DVD)
Date:	28/03/03 (189 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Excellent acting, Full of suspense, Very well photographed

Disadvantages: Predicatble ending, Home Alone plot

Home Alone IV – The Adult Version

I’ll start with my summary

Superbly acted, fabulously directed, dimly and darkly photographed using panning and tilting cameras to incredible effect, moody and appropriate score, bursting with suspense and very, very tense.

Shame about the plot though – more holes in it than a colander.

I once read that by the year 2005 every possible combination of musical notes would have been used, meaning that there would no longer be any original songs or tunes left to record. Listening to today’s charts and the predominance of cover versions, rap music and songs that sound vaguely familiar I think that the time has already arrived.

I suppose that is also true about story lines and nowadays the emphasis in books and on TV and movies is no longer about original plots but the way in which the story is told. This is certainly the case with David Fincher’s ‘Panic Room’ - a very good film, yet based on a plot somewhere between a traditional Alfred Hitchcock thriller and ‘Home Alone’.

The movie starts with recently divorced and unhappy Meg Altman played by the wonderful Jodie Foster, inspecting a typical New York town house along with her restless young daughter Sarah played by Kristen Stewart (definitely a future star). Meg has recently been divorced and is looking to spend her generous divorce settlement to buy a spacious home. Why a single mother and her teenage daughter would want to buy such a dark and rambling old house that big is the first mystery.

However without the house there would be no plot because the house is the home of a former wealthy eccentric and contains an unusual extra feature, a supposedly impenetrable "panic room" equipped with separate air and water supplies, surveillance monitors, phone line, and a variety of other survival aids, where residents can hide in case of emergency.

As luck wou
ld have it, on the first night in their new home their house is broken into by three burglars who reminded me for all the world of a seedier version of the motley crew in ‘Home Alone’. The three men, Burnham (Forest Whitaker), Junior (Jared Leto), and Raoul (country music star, Dwight Yoakam) aren’t just bungling burglars though; they know the house, know of a secret in the panic room, and desperately want it. Meg and Sarah escape to the Panic Room and from here on in, we see a battle of wits between them and the burglars as the bungling trio try to enter the room, while our heroes try to keep them out.

It was at this stage I presented a number of fairly obvious solutions to their predicament to my ever-patient wife who was watching the video with me. Even without specialist training I could have brokered a deal to make everyone happy. I won’t go into that here, because I’m sure if you watch the video you’ll have roughly the same thoughts, but don’t let me put you off, once you’ve suspended your disbelief at the actions of Meg and the burglars you will really enjoy this movie.

The confined setting is typical of the Hitchcock thrillers and the suspense is released at regular intervals to keep you on your toes. Jodie Foster, who replaced Nicole Kidman after she injured herself on the set of Moulin Rouge gives a performance as good as her Clarence Starling part in The silence of the Lambs. One of the script’s strengths is the animosity existing between the burglars, whose differing motives and personalities become apparent over the course of the film.

Forest Whitaker is an employee of the security company that built the panic room. He's nervous and doesn’t want to see anyone get hurt. Jared Leto has some sort of connection (couldn’t quite follow what) with the man who died in the house only weeks before. The most frightening among them is country singer Dwight Yoakam as a
violent, trigger happy, psychopath brought in on the job at the last minute by Leto. Unlike his partners in crime, he's prepared to kill to get his share.

The movie has a lot going for it. It has suspense by the bucketful, accentuated by enhanced tracking shots - the camera repeatedly snakes down numerous flights of stairs through banisters, floors and keyholes. It is very atmospheric and claustrophobic making you feel as if you are the house itself.

Excellent value too - the VHS is generally available at only £4.99!

My only complaints are in the probably unavoidable comparison with the Home Alone plot and the predictable ending, but as I’ve said the world seems to be running out of original stories.

Summary: