I knew this movie would be very good because it's directed by one of my favourite directors, David Fincher (who made Seven and the awesome Fight Club).  And it surprised me by exceeding my very high expectations!  Jodie Foster and Kristen Stewart play Meg and Sarah Altman, mother and daughter who buy a large house with a "Panic Room" (a safe room for protection from intruders) fortified with six inch thick steel doors, with all the latest high-tech surveillance equipment installed.  And the very night they move in, their house is broken into by three men - Junior (Jared Leto), Burnham (Forest Whitaker) and Raoul (Dwight Yoakam) - who want something in the house.  Meg and Sarah run to the Panic Room and lock themselves in... only to find out that the intruders want something from that very room!

That bit of plot is almost all there is in this two hour thriller, but it's probably the most tense two hours I've ever sat through.  The acting is uniformly first-rate, the music (by Howard Shore) adds tremendously to the atmosphere (the music was very much in the style of the score he did for Seven).  The characters are all well written.  With little bits of story- and character-developing dialogue in between all the thrills, I got to know the characters in the movie well, and the movie was that much more effective because of that.  And you get to see a LOT more of Fincher's visual trickery (remember the refrigerator-blowing-up scene in Fight Club?).  The camerawork is literally another character in this movie.  Do I really need to say that I thoroughly enjoyed it (when I could catch my breath, that is)?

There are several great dialogues in the script: the "GET THE F**K OUT OF MY HOUSE!!  bit was my favourite.  And in the tradition of Seven and Fight Club, it has a terrific and very inventive opening credits sequence.

Running Time: 120 minutes | Country: US | Genre: Thriller