When i rented this movie i thought it was supposed to be a thriller. i didnt know it was supposed to be about people trying to rob and woman and her kid. So the robbers don't know the people are in the house as they break in. when the woman discovers people are in the house, she grabs her daughter and they run in the panic room. But what they don't know is what the robbers want is in the panic room. it is a very good movie with good action, and some funny moments. i recommend the rent.

While nowhere near on the blockbuster status of Steven Spielberg or the respectability of Martin Scorsese, David Fincher is a very capable director telling his stories in such a way that it's almost like in any other hands, it would just flat apart. Like Panic Room. Very simple basic premise yet he pulls it off, with a habit of showing off now and then.

Meg and her daughter Sarah live in a big ass house with 3(or was it 4?) floors. There's a special thing about this house. It contains a "panic room", essentially if there's burglars, the housemates can run into the room and barricade themselves in as it's protected by steel and concrete.

But, on the first night(convenient, the FIRST night they stay in the house), 3 burglars come in looking for something. Meg and Sarah manage just in time to make it into the room. Only one problem: the burglars want what's inside the room, all 3 million of it.

It's essentially a cat and mouse thriller only the mouse is inside a cage and cat can't get him. So the cat tries several ways to get at the mouse and substitute the cat with 3 burglars, the mouse with 2 women and there's your movie. Feels slightly long but luckily enough happens that it almost makes you feel when the movie's over.

Performances are likable especially the 3 burglars, having distinct personalities without the 3 stooges attitude some films have. The women are likable although to be honest, Jodie Foster does these screams now and then and they're just irritating to listen to. And the ending is almost abrupt as the film ends and you go "isn't there a scene missing or something?"

Always a fan of different camera techniques, he expands on ideas that he used during Fight Club where the camera can go to places that ordinarily it can't and some work, such as the scene where the burglars make their appearance and the camera passes in the opening of a cup handle, others like seeing a light bulb filament makes you think he's just trying to make you go "neat".

This reminds me of the Game, also by Fincher: it's not one of the better ones that he's done but still it's quite likable.

A very good cast with a very unique director on how the direction goes with each character in the movie. Nicole Kidman was suppose to play the star role, but with her injury in Moulin Rouge, Fincher asked Jodie Foster to do it and I heard she didn't really want to play this role, but after watching the making of it on the bonus DVD's, she was really looking forward to it...I had to re-purchase this movie though in the 3-Disc Special Edition though once I found out that Columbia re-released it...Which is very much worth it if anybody owns the 2-Disc Collector's Edition of Fight Club which I thought was out of print, but found about 8 copies of it at a Best Buy location. Panic Room being a movie about home invasion and what the three men want (Forest Whitaker, Jared Leto, & Dwight Yoakum) are in the panic room and Foster and her kid (Kristen Stewart) do not let them in. The three men begin to find their own ways to get into the panic room, using a small gas tank and gas them out to just giving them the finger on camera and cussing at them from outside. Their situation gets more horrifying when Foster's husband in the movie visits them after a frightening phone call. He gets beaten to death on camera while Foster and her kid watches painfully. The tragic ending involves two of the men dead and one escaping with the money that was hidden in the floor panel of the panic room. Foster and her kid find a new place in New York City. Fincher made a great MAZE of a movie in this dark movie of home invasion. This one is a must if you enjoyed his previous hits such as FIGH CLUB, SE7EN, & ALIEN 3 if you liked it. *shrug*

Oh my God the tension in this movie is practically unbearable. From the very beginning of the movie, to the very end, my nails were digging into my palms, and I was constantly wondering what would happen next. Despite having your usual plotholes (propane being lighter than air for example) and some of the characters being so utterly stupid, it beggars belief, this doesn't detract from the movie at all. The film, being largely set in the one place, also makes you feel extremely claustrophobic.

The opening credits are the most original next to Cellular in my opinion. Opening credits are amazingly realistic in that they cast shadows and are reflected on the surrounding glass buildings. This was the first of two films in as many months to feature screenwriter David Koepp's name in the opening credits, hanging in front of a New York skyscraper. (See also Spider-Man) The opening credits were created by a collaboration between title design company The Picture Mill and special effects company ComputerCafe. It took them one year to complete.

Jodie Foster played an absolutely amazing character in this. For some reason, I've never been too keen on watching Jodie Foster, and have only seen her in Silence Of The Lambs, and the original Freaky Friday. She was pregnant with her second child during filming. Because of this, reshoots had to be made in the autumn of 2001 after she had given birth, as principal photography took longer than planned. According to David Fincher, Kristen Stewart grew more than three inches during filming of this project. She was smaller than Jodie when the production satrted and towered over her when the final shots were done, no doubt due to the reshoots! Nicole Kidman was originally cast to play the role of Meg Altman, but was forced to back out of the role after eighteen days due to a recurring knee injury. She originally injured the knee during the filming of Moulin Rouge! However, you can still hear her as the voice of Stephen Altman's girlfriend.

The cellular phone used by Jodie Foster in this movie is a Nokia 8890. The silver slide phone is often mistaken as the phone used in The Matrix.

The only thing I didn't like about this movie was Kirsten Stewart's performance. It was very bland for some reason, and I thought she could have easily stabbed the bad guys with insulin long before she did. Both actresses are also quite plain looking, which works for Jodie Foster, but not so much in Kirsten's case, as she's almost instantly forgettable, as well as being a very androgynous actress. Thankfully, she avoids the cutesy kid thing very well, although comes across as a little brat occasionally.

The only quibble I have about the ending (apart from Forest Whitaker's character giving up way too easily), is what happened to the dad/husband? Did he die, did he live? I would have liked to have found out what happened to him.

I quite liked the bit where the girl, Sarah, used "SOS" morse code to attract the attention of a neighbour, and when asked where she learned it from, she said Titanic. This would commonly be taken to mean the multi-Oscar-winning film Titanic. Although the Morse Code for SOS doesn't appear in that movie, there are sufficient ways of excusing this mistake (she's under stress, she's referring to another version of the story, loads of people are absolutely convinced that they heard SOS in Titanic even though they couldn't have, she just doesn't remember where she heard it but supposes it must have been there, etc) that it's allowable as character error.

After seeing this movie, it's definitely a must-see, and not to be bought 'because it was cheap', and never to be watched again. Look out for Jared Leto's very strange character, and Forest Whitaker's excellent performance.

Oh, and this is my 400th review! Just a little something to add on there.

If you aren't a fan of this movie or you are just a causal fan then this set is way more than you'd ever want to know about the film. For me this set is what I wanted from the day I saw this movie at the theater.
This comprehensive DVD package gives you details about ever possible part of production. The multiple commentary tracks provide numerous stores about the process of making this film and many key people can be found on these tracks. Personally my favorite part of the DVD set was the visual effects breakdowns. Here you get to see numerous visual effects show from the film and learn about how they were done. I'm a huge fan of the "How'd They Do That" kind of features and this release didn't let me down.
This is such a packed release that it makes me wish all the films I love would be a release half as good as this amazing set.