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Panic Room
Sony Pictures Entertainment / Columbia Pictures


6.8

based on 36 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 45 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

FILM:

MPAA RATING: R for violence and language

Starring Jodie Foster, Kristen Stewart, Forest Whitaker, Jared Leto, Dwight Yoakam, Patrick Bauchau, Ian Buchanan, and Ann Magnuson

A newly divorced mother (Foster) and her young daughter are caught in a cat-and-mouse game with three intruders who break into their New York apartment searching for a hidden cache of cash.

GENRE(S):	Suspense/Thriller
WRITTEN BY:	David Koepp
DIRECTED BY:	David Fincher
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: September 17, 2002 Video: September 17, 2002 Theatrical: March 29, 2002
RUNNING TIME:	111 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

The New Yorker Anthony Lane

There is something horribly apt in the way Fincher closes the drama in joyless exhaustion, leaving you certain that there will be a sequel to these events, not onscreen but in someone's home, tonight. [8 April 2002, p. 95]

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

Ingeniously scary.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps

An old-house thriller retrofitted for the 21st century without any touch of unneeded flash, Panic Room is scary enough to do for downtown living what Jaws did for beaches.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Fincher eschews quick cuts in favor of long, leisurely ones. He knows what he's doing, and the proof is in the result. The suspense in Panic Room never ebbs, and that makes for a thoroughly entertaining -- if somewhat exhausting -- 108 minutes.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

Richly frightening film.

Film Threat David Grove

A very scary film, well made and lovingly dark, and it illustrates how terrified we are of becoming the victims we see on TV.

Variety Todd McCarthy

Smartly plotted, convincingly acted and brilliantly executed technically, this engrossing thriller adds some clever modern wrinkles to the time-tested formula of sinister intruders threatening innocents in their home.

LA Weekly Manohla Dargis

Always adept at hitting emotional cues cleanly, Foster in this role also lets herself get lost in the moment, which is something she hasn't often allowed herself to do since "The Silence of the Lambs."

Washington Post Desson Thomson

The movie, which suggests a combination of "Wait Until Dark" and "Rear Window," not only takes your breath away on an aesthetic level, it eloquently evokes the mother's and daughter's vulnerability.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Panic Room is Fincher's high-style testament to the cool things movies can do to make us jump out of our seats in the dark.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

Works the basics with style and intelligence.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

Jodie Foster stars, and it's a pleasure, for once, to see her in something entertaining and mindless.

Chicago Tribune Mark Caro

Fincher has a dazzling command of visual storytelling.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

May actually appeal more to women than men because of the steely heroine, the pitting of love of family against love of filthy lucre -- and the mom-fights-back plot.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

Generally makes good on its promise. There are shivers to be felt, especially in the early stages, and there's fun to be had, including the post-movie pleasure of detecting the soft spots in the plot. The result is an always-watchable picture from a director capable of more.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

It's pure popcorn entertainment, and it's pure formula, too: It's already been described, somewhat derisively, as Home Alone for grown-ups, which is not entirely off the mark.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

The movie resembles a chess game; the board and all of the pieces are in full view, both sides know the rules, and the winner will simply be the better strategist.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Defies logic, the laws of physics and almost anyone's willingness to believe in it. But darned if it doesn't also keep us riveted to our seats.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

Well-paced, well-structured nail-biter with precious little of the usual Hollywood nonsense, several virtuoso sequences, and a camera flourish that only occasionally gets silly.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Acceptably diverting Saturday night at the movies, especially if you're willing to check your brains at the popcorn stand.

Time Richard Schickel

A fairly standard exercise in claustrophobic menace. It is also an exercise in style.

The New York Times Dana Stevens

An above-average thriller.

USA Today Mike Clark

Things move fast enough to make it a movie to enjoy and then forget.

Slate David Edelstein

Panic Room is fluidly made, and it keeps the audience quiet and unpleasantly gripped. But the only surprise is the absence of surprise; that trap is in too-plain view.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

What's surprising about this traditional thriller, moderately successful but not completely satisfying, is exactly how genteel and unsurprising the execution turns out to be.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

A well-crafted exercise in urban paranoia that's so controlled it never achieves the reckless, visceral immediacy its subject matter demands.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

Soon enough a pointed ode to New York City nerve-rack and survival skills dissolves into a far more average, less compelling, and sometimes just slapdash-vicious cat-and-mouse game.

Boston Globe Jay Carr

Might give you a few decorating ideas if you happen to have been wondering about a home bomb shelter, but it's a thriller that doesn't thrill.

Austin Chronicle Kimberley Jones

Feels like a Fincher film: It possesses the same smarts, the same visual panache, the same violence. But not the same heart.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

I was never bored but only occasionally interested.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

The kind of joyless, over-calculated hit that may leave viewers feeling not haunted but headachy.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Foster is fine, but the story's outcome would seem a tad more uncertain if another actress had the part. How scary are three New York tough guys when you've handled Hannibal Lecter in your time?

New Times (L.A.) Robert Wilonsky

The cumulative effect is less thrilling than it is merely amusing.

New York Magazine Peter Rainer

It's difficult to work up a strong case of the heebie-jeebies when you keep getting thrown out of the movie by all the atrocious acting.

Salon.com Charles Taylor

Might be entertaining for those who like seeing a terrified teenage girl watch a loved one get beaten to a pulp while she slides into a diabetic coma. For the rest of us it's both stagnant and vaguely unpleasant.

Village Voice J. Hoberman

Like the shelter for which it is named, Panic Room is an efficiently tooled construction (albeit one whose success is overly predicated on its villains' single-minded idiocy). But unlike the eponymous treasure trove, there's nothing inside.

The average user rating for this movie is 6.8 (out of 10) based on 45 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Alex B. gave it a9:
I love the idea of this movie as much as the movie itself. If you like Audrey Hepburn's film "Wait Until Dark," you will love Panic Room. It is very much like an updated version of that classic. Many people found that this movie wasn't thrilling enough and if you start watching it expecting a jump-out-of-your-seat thriller you will not be satisfied either. My advice for enjoying this movie the way it was meant to be, is to just sit back and put yourself in the situation and not expect startling experiances. Love this movie; it's one of my favorites!

Jake gave it an8:
Fincher just never seems to be able to make the transition from a good director to a great director....oh well, this is pretty damn good movie, very suspensful at parts, and contradicting what Pat said, pretty memorable in my mind at least. But when it comes down to it, it's pure entertainment.....there's not much susptance to the idea, and there could have been (maybe had M. Night written the screenplay) but what the film does well, it does very well.

Marshall M. gave it a10:
Amazingly intelligent! one of my favorites! muss -see!!!

Alexander W. gave it a 9:
Loved the movie, looking forward to the 3DVD Special Edition on the way :-)

Pat C. gave it a 4:
An average movie in every way. Nothing objectionable, nothing memoriable. With Foster, Whitaker & Yoakam all playing roles that demanded little of their talents, it is slightly less than the sum of its parts.

Yoon C. gave it a 7:
Fincher is a muscular visual stylist, a real gymast among the new generation of directors. Yet, he doesn't have much to do here except crank out the usual tricks of suspense. He has us biting our nails in a few scenes but it's essentially a steroid pumped tom and jerry routine. The ending, as usual in such offerings, is over-the-top, lurid, and ugly, or what passes for BIG THRILLS according to Hollywood execs. Good but perfunctory acting by all the particulars.

raVen gave it a 7:
The moral of the story? That gigantic meat locker we all have in our upstairs bedroom isn't all it's cracked up to be. Whatever problems you have with the extremes of the situation, they are overcome in the end by the empathy Forest Whitaker builds for his character. I started rooting for him, too.

Panic Room Sony Pictures Entertainment / Columbia Pictures

Panic Room
Sony Pictures Entertainment / Columbia Pictures