Panic Room review

Panic Room does not feature on any iteration of the top 1000 films of all time. However, as I watched it recently, I'm giving my views nonetheless.

Recently divorced mother Meg Altman (Jodie Foster) and her diabetic daughter (Sarah) have just moved into a new four-storey house in New York City's Upper West Side. The house has its own panic room. After Meg and Sarah are invaded by a trio of burglars the ring-leader Junior (Jared Leto,) the psychotic Raoul (Dwight Yoakam) and the more compassionate Burnham (Forest Whitaker,) mother and daughter take shelter in the panic room. However, that's exactly where the home invaders want to be too.

Panic Room was David Fincher's fifth full-length directorial film. He is well-represented on the 2024 edition of the top 1000 films of all time with 8/12 of his films being featured on there. It's no surprise Alien 3 isn't on the list - maybe it would be on a list of the 1000 worsen films of all time. And perhaps Mank and the Killer are too modern to be featured. But it was a surprise that Panic Room didn't make it onto the list. Don't ask me how the mind of an IMDB audience works, but they obviously love Fincher as the majority of his films make some appearance on this list.

Panic Room had all the hallmarks of your classic Fincher thriller including low lighting, tight camera angles and morally grey characters. It also had a rousing score by frequent collaborator Howard Shore. However, what separated Panic Room from other Fincher thrillers was its sense of claustrophobia. Much of the film takes place in the Altman's panic room meaning you feel every second of its stuffy atmosphere.

 Having been exhausted by the multiple sets on Fight Club, Fincher wanted to direct something far simpler and more pared down. Considering the multiple production issues he had including Jodie Foster being a last-minute replacement for Nicole Kidman (who still appears in a tiny voiceover role) or having to reshoot some of the film with Foster returning on maternity leave, I'm not sure whether this production was much simpler for him really.

Regardless of the simplicity of the shoot, I still thought Panic Room was an entertaining film. It might have lacked some of the social commentary of his most famous film Fight Club or the gore of Se7en, but it had a cracking cast. Jodie Foster, Jared Leto, Nicole Kidman and Forest Whitaker share four acting Oscars between them while Kristen Stewart is also Oscar-nominated. This was only her third film, but proved to be her breakout role. 

Jared Leto brought a great manic energy to Junior who desperately tries to keep control while his well-thought strategy to rob the panic room crumbles around him. He contrasted well with the more calm and controlled Forest Whitaker. However, I think the dark horse of the three was the psychotic Dwight Yoakam who brought a scarily calm energy to the role of Raoul. Although Yoakam is better known as a country music singer this was definitely not his first rodeo as he starred in the earlier 1996 film Sling Blade.

True, as the film progresses, it goes get slightly more absurd eventually concluding in an anti-climatic disappointing ending. 

*spoilers to follow*

Having spent much of the film locked up in the panic room with minimal mobile phone signal, Meg finally gets through to 911 only for them to put her on hold, which rather beggared belief. This was a plot point a bit too fantastical to really believe. In the final confrontation between Meg, Sarah and Raoul, it isn't the women who kill Raoul, but Burnham who has a change of heart. 

This change of heart means he is inevitably caught by the police. Right at the start, it was established that Burnham was the most compassionate of the three burglars due to his outright declaration of not wanting to kill anybody, so I guess I could buy him coming back to save the women. However, Panic Room received a lot of critical praise for its feminist themes - much of the film prior to the climax shows the female Meg and Sarah outsmarting the male burglars yet they were ultimately saved by a man - Burnham. 

True, it might be unlikely for a mother and twelve-year-old girl to overpower a murderous man like Raoul, but we already saw Meg's intelligence. I would have been willing to suspend my disbelief to have seen her fatally outsmart Raoul. While Sarah was attacking Raoul from behind, perhaps Meg could have found the wherewithal to have picked up Raoul's gun and shoot him. To not have done so, slightly countermanded the feminist messaging. But maybe I'm looking too much into it.

The film ultimately ends on a bit of damp squib with Meg and Sarah discussing new places to live. Perhaps this is what stopped it from featuring on the top 1000 films of all time - that and all the unnecessary slow-motion. 

Although it didn't earn its place on the top 1000 films of all time, Panic Room was still an entertaining and thrilling film to watch. 

Fight Club review

 Number 10 on the top 1000 films of all time is David Fincher's psychological thriller 'Fight Club.'

Edward Norton plays an unnamed white-collar worker and insomniac. Alienated from life and everybody around him, he forges a relationship with the mysterious and hedonistic soap salesman Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt.) The two of them form an underground fighting club which soon grows into something much bigger and more dangerous than either of them could ever expect. Helena Bonham Carter co-stars as the love interest of both male characters - Marla Singer.

Say the first two rules of Fight Club with me: You do not talk about Fight Club. Sorry, Mr Durden, but I will be breaking those rules straight away. As this film is probably David Fincher's most famous outing. based on Chuck Palahniuk's book of the same name, Fincher perfectly dialled into the alienation of Generation X. To paraphrase Tyler Durden, they are a generation without purpose. They had no war to fight, no great depression to suffer through, no collective identity - they are a group of men looking for meaning in a meaningless world. They are a dead people who find feeling in beating each other up.

Yet this film is so much more than just men fighting with each other. Regardless of what the ill-advised marketing campaign would have you believe. There is so much societal and political commentary from how we are constantly bombarded with advertising, which is more relevant now than it was in 1999, to the role of men in the modern world. Long gone are the days where men were the providers and builders of society.

I also hadn't realised how darkly comic the film was until I rewatched it. Much of this black humour comes in the film's initial act, when the narrator, in desperate efforts to find connection, attends a number of support groups including a testicular cancer support group. Here he meets Robert Paulsen - Meatloaf hidden under a massive fatsuit and prosthetic bitch tits. Due to Paulsen's cancer, he has quite literally become emasculated. He is just another lost man in an ocean of lost men.

Nobody is more lost than insomniac narrator played by Ed Norton in one of his most recognisable roles. Norton contributed greatly to the film's humour with his deadpan narration constantly conveying his cynicism about life. Even more recognisable was Brad Pitt who brought the enigmatic, anarchist Tyler Durden to life. By modern standards, you could argue Durden's nihilistic dialogue about the uselessness of the modern man is cheesy. In the hands of a lesser actor they would have been laughable, but Pitt was so convincing in the role that his words sounded almost philosophical. To some real audiences, they were a beacon inspiring real-life fight clubs all over the US.

Norton and Pitt also had a great chemistry. They balanced each other out in so many ways despite being complete opposites. This makes sense considering the film's twist ending, which I won't spoil here.

The setting was just as ambiguous as our narrator. Like how he is supposed to be an everyman, the setting could have been any run-down city full of disenfranchised men. The dull colour palate only added to the overall sense of alienation.

Lastly let's talk about Helena Bonham Carter who brought some fresh air to a sombre film. Marla Singer who, in retrospect was one of the first manic pixie dream girls, seems a hybrid of Durden and the narrator. She has all the narrator's cynicism, but also Durden's toxic hedonism. The three of them together were a toxic triangle.

If you don't know a lot about Fight Club, you might just write it off as a silly man film about sad men fighting each other because they can't properly process their emotions, but don't write it off too quickly. There is far more to this film than meets the eye. 

Se7en Review

SPOILER ALERT

Number 25 on the top 1000 films ofall time is this psychological horror/thriller film, David Fincher’s 1995 film Se7en.

Morgan Freeman plays the soon-to-retire William Somerset, an old and wise police detective and Brad Pitt is the cocky, young and arrogant Detective Mills.  Together they pursue a sadistic serial killer dubbed John Doe, played brilliantly by Kevin Spacey, who murders people in conjunction with seven deadly sins: lust, pride, greed, gluttony, sloth, wrath and envy. 

I really liked the premise behind this film and how it delved in deep into the psyche of a serial killer.  I’ve noticed that in society, there is a strong fascination with serial killers and their motivations.  Whilst we don’t necessarily condone their actions, they are definitely interesting to learn about.  This is one reason why I liked this film: it really took the time to explore John Doe’s character and his motivations for killing.  It delved well into his backstory and his psyche.  

This fleshed him out better as a character and added a sense of intrigue to the film.  Kevin Spacey was once again great as the serial killer: John Doe.  Playing the role with a deadpan seriousness, he conveyed himself, as a cool, calm and collected character.  This is what made him so scary; the fact that he doesn’t show any emotion or remorse for his actions makes him truly frightening.  I also quite liked the idea of John Doe using the seven deadly sins as a template for his kills.  I felt that this was creative and original enough to keep the film memorable.

However, Kevin Spacey is just one of a magnificent cast. As well as Spacey, you have Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman and Gwyneth Paltrow. These four actors share six Oscars between them - Best Actor Oscars for Paltrow and Spacey. Pitt and Freeman had a great chemistry together with Freeman acting as a begrudging mentor to the young hotshot Pitt. And I didn't even mind Gwyneth Paltrow who played Pitt's wife Tracey. 

Finally, there was some great cinematography which showed the drab and depressing city that the characters inhabit. A city deserving of the awful people who live inside it.