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Rating: "Panic room": a title that says it all.
A divorced and depressed mother and her diabetic teenage daughter spend their first night in their new home, without dad. The house in question is a peculiar property: it's very spacious (by Manhattan standards, where it is located) and has a unique feature: a Panic room. They call it "The Panic Room" (I quote the dialogues verbatim). It's a very thick reinforced concrete bunker, equipped with an unbreachable solid steel door, designed to serve as a refuge for the occupants should burglars enter the house. Initially underestimated by the landlady, this room comes into use on the very day the new inhabitants move in.
The story itself is not filled with characters, which is just what is required in this case: to present a few simple things but characterized intensely (I emphasize that the plot unfolds all in one night, which is also rather drizzly). In this case, there are only six characters: the three burglars, the mother and daughter in the Panic room, and the house. I purposely don't count the house since, in its silence, eternal penumbra, and vastness, it manages to imprison and condition the protagonists' actions simultaneously, like a damned labyrinth. Returning to the burglars, these consist of three fellows: the planner (a useless, snobbish idiot who will meet a bad end), the burglar (a poor black man with a family who acts because he NEEDS money to live), and the welder (Raoul, a cold and touchy guy with a balaclava; he won't meet a good end either). Add to the picture two frightened women locked in a 1.5m x 3m bunker, one of whom is diabetic, while the burglars roam the house, and things get rather serious. Aggravated by the fact that what the thieves want to take is right inside the Panic room (an overflowing safe), now inaccessible. Unless those occupying it open the door. And this is where the burglars will focus their greatest efforts: forcing them out. They'll try from below, through a breach in the room's ventilation duct, suffocating them with gas, but without success. And after narrowly avoiding the women calling the police via a cable pulled from a wall, one of these guys (Junior, the idiot who organized everything) breaks down and decides to leave. Discovering that the money in the safe was more than he had declared and the strong suspicion that, once out, Junior would call the cops moves Raoul to kill him. Here the first act of the film can be said to be concluded, and the atmosphere, from tragicomic as it was, shifts to something decidedly more dramatic.
Thus, the story loses a player, immediately replaced by the woman's ex-husband in the Panic room (who came due to a phone alert), a rather famous pharmaceutical entrepreneur, Steven Altman. Faced with the insolence of the sadistic welder, he suddenly turns into a hostage. The other burglar (ultimately innocent), unfortunately for him, finds himself in the worst of situations. After much tension, the burglars manage to enter the room (while the mother has secretly gone to get medicine for her diabetic daughter) and do their work. However, once out, they must deal with the strategies put in place by the woman. After a furious struggle, Raoul (now out of control) dies at the hands of his fellow thief, who flees. But, like any respectable finale, the police's intervention resolves the situation, captures the surviving thief, and recovers the loot, leaving a mother and daughter dazed but at the same time united by that episode. What matters most in this film is the disruption of environments, where the house becomes the external space and the Panic room the internal one. The house, as I mentioned before, is a labyrinthine jungle like Ludovico Ariosto's (the "Orlando Furioso") where the same characters intertwine, each searching for something. Only in this context is the action more concentrated in specific points, like the room outside the chamber, or the kitchen or the stairs or the elevator.
From an artistic point of view, I must say that I haven't felt such suspense in a long time. While, regarding the technical aspect, I tend to highlight the director's intent to make the camera movements unusually fluid and to focus even on the smallest details, using special effects more than once. In conclusion, "Panic Room" is a good movie, not quite a thriller, but it has suspense, action, and dramatic moments in the right doses. Jodie Foster, in the role of the depressed yet strong mother (as in her other roles in other films) once again demonstrates her talent and skill. The other actors are within limits (but Jared Leto also does a decent job).
Recommended to watch at night. It has the right effect.
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