Panic Room

June 22, 2019 - A secure room provides temporary shelter for a mother and daughter when greedy crooks break into their new home in Manhattan. Jodie Foster is the mom, a very young Kristen Stewart is the daughter, Forest Whitaker, Jared Leto and Dwight Yoakam are the bad guys. David Fincher directs.

Foster plays a woman soon to be divorced from her wealthy, cheating husband. Looking for a fresh start, she and her daughter decide to move into a Manhattan townhouse with way too many floors, an elevator and a built-in panic room. Seems the previous owner was very rich and, in his final years, a sickly, paranoid recluse.

No sooner have mom and daughter settled in for the night than in breaks Forest Whitaker, followed by Jared Leto and, surprise! Dwight Yoakam. Leto is a relative of the recluse who knows where to find millions of dollars that the old man hid from the family. The money is in a floor safe in the panic room. The plan to get it goes awry when Jodie and Kristen get to the panic room first, setting off a fierce and bloody battle of wits and wills.

Overall review: *** I'm giving three stars instead of two because, for a movie that came out in 2002, it holds up well. On the downside, some of the effects are a little too CSI. But, overall, everyone is appropriately terrified/pissed off and it's an entertaining two hours.