If Anyone Has Not Seen Panic Room Yet, You Must Do So. Now.

Yesterday I watched Panic Room in all its grey-blue, clever, eerie glory. It came out in 2002 so for those of you who need a refresher, it's about a single mother (Jodie Foster) and young teenage daughter (an adorable Kristen Stewart) who move into a large and slightly lavish apartment in the upper west side of New York City. While going to view the apartment with realtors, they discover its "amenities" include 4 stories, I believe, a large sky light, French-style doors, a handicapped elevator (from the previous owner), spacious bedrooms and kitchen, oh, and in the master bedroom is a "panic room." Because a home isn't a home without a steel box you can hide use as a hidey-hole to view any intruders or terrorists or dinosaurs that may come charging through without permission demanding to sit in that steel box with you. And that's exactly what happens. On their first night in the new apartment. Of the intruders are Forest Whitaker as the smart softy, Jared Leto (with cornrows?) as the is-he-on-crack? leader of the pack, and a masked Dwight Yoakam, who is perfect as a nonchalant master robber. And what do they want? Three million dollars that's locked in a safe in the panic room! When do they want it? Now!

As soon as the threesome entered the house and Meg (Jodie) and Sarah Altman (Kristen) are watching them from the eight TV monitors inside, I found myself screaming and groaning and hissing at my laptop screen (I watched it on the Internet, okay?) with my big white headphones on, as most David Fincher films cause me to do. "Turn it on, turn it on! Go, go, go, go, get up! What are you doing?! Stop flashing the light! He's just gonna close the curtain! Stop it! Grab it! Light it!" probably sounding like I was playing the PS2. Thank goodness Roomie2 wasn't home for that.

According to Wikipedia, the screen writer, David Koepp, harvested the idea of the film due to a newspaper article in the New York Times in which they called the room a "safe room," but changed the name to "panic room" since the story was a thriller. Mighty good idea, sir. Most entertaining. I give this movie a "That was insane" out of 10.