David Fincher’s Panic Room taps into the collective claustrophobia triggered by Sept. 11. Like any good horror or suspense movie, it transforms something comfortable and mundane — a new home — into something horrible.
Trouble starts when newly divorced Meg Altman (Jodie Foster) and her androgynous daughter Sarah (Kristen Stewart) move into a huge Manhattan brownstone and three robbers break in on their first night. It is a familiar plot, essentially borrowed from Home Alone. But Fincher unleashes his talents for building suspense on the contrived script, making Panic Room a fun, twist-filled ride — even if it’s nothing more than a good popcorn movie.
Meg soon discovers one of her new home’s many extravagances: a heavily barricaded escape pod, called a “panic room,” designed for the paranoid millionaire. It is fit with a steel door, a separate phone line and a slew of TV screens for tracking intruders. Predictably, when the robbers break in, Foster and daughter take refuge in the room.

The catch is that the $3 million the robbers are after is in a safe in the panic room. They can’t get in, but they soon realize that there are ways of getting the mother and daughter out. As Meg and Sarah learn, the TV monitors in the room aren’t such a good thing, showing them things they may not want to see and giving the intruders an advantage.
The movie becomes a lively game of cat and mouse as each side seeks the upper hand. On one end is a strong-willed mother who gets nasty and sledgehammer-wielding, in full Foster mode, when her daughter’s life is at risk. On the other, a trio of misfit robbers: Junior (Jared Leto) is the foolhardy young guy, Burnham (Forest Whittaker) is the conflicted moralist, and ski-cap wearing Raoul (Dwight Yoakam) is the mystery man. The acting, though never breathtaking, is as good as it needs to be in a suspense movie. Foster and Whitaker are especially convincing in their roles.
Part of Fincher’s magic is using computer tricks to create odd camera angles and movements. His camera zips like a fly through coffee handles, keyholes and the insides of walls. It’s also clear Fincher has seen The Shining. He knows how to use steadicam for spooky effects, weaving through halls and around corners in fluid motions.

Even the title sequence is fresh and surprising: the name credits are made to look like part of the New York City skyline, suspended in the air between buildings and casting shadows on the ground as real objects would.

Fincher has twice proved that a talented director can build a great movie out of a vapid story. In 1995’s Seven, he breathed new life into the breed of thriller in which cops chase an elusive serial killer who has a gruesome — and often gimmicky — method of murder. The director almost equaled Seven’s success two years later, with Fight Club, a film that is, on its most basic level, about men beating each other up. But unlike its predecessors, Panic Room never quite transcends the limits of its outworn story.