Rio Rancho Film Reviews: David Fincher

Films of the Decade: Crime

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Top Five Crime Films

5. Sexy Beast

Ben Kingsley may get most of the plaudits for playing the shouty psychopath Don Logan, but Ian McShane plays the most chilling villain here. Fucked in the arse by a banker during an orgy, he decides to fuck the guy in return by robbing his bank. Basically the film isn’t about Ray Winstone and Ben Kingsley, it’s about a homoerotic power struggle between a banker and a hood. Everything else is just garnish, even though it’s wonderful garnish. The dialogue in particular is a joy to behold.

4. Narc

A fairly straight forward cop movie that is elevated by some incredible performances and by the gritty filmmaking, it takes the good cop/bad cop cliché to the extreme. Both Jason Patric and Ray Liotta raise their game and give career best performances. It was such a great film that I had very high hopes for Joe Carnahan…but then he made Smokin’ Aces…and has The A-Team in the can. But at least this film kicks ass.

3. No Country For Old Men

An excellent adaptation of the wonderful Cormac McCarthy novel, No Country For Old Men is a modern western dressed up as a crime film. It’s all about the conflict between good and evil. But what makes the film so special is how resigned it is. No matter what we do, there’s always going to be evil in the world; evil that doesn’t make sense. And even though we usually start our lives with the belief that understanding will come with age, the opposite usually occurs. The more we live, the less the world makes sense. In addition to this, No Country For Old Men also features some amazing set-pieces. The whole film is wracked with an incredible amount of tension.

2. Zodiac

David Fincher’s most mature film, Zodiac is a bleak serial killer film that leads the characters and audience through several blind alleys. There’s no clean resolution and it’s never 100% clear who the murderer is. But even though most of the ‘action’ happens at the frontend of the film, it always remains fascinating viewing. This isn’t a film about a killer and the killer being brought to justice. It’s a film about obsession and the human need for answers. A man practically ruins his life just to try and find out who a serial killer is. One scene beautifully illustrates his plight – a San Francisco skyscraper gets built and the landscape of the city changes as the man remains locked in the past. Without answers, he can’t move forward and without moving forward he can’t hope to live a meaningful life. He’s as much a victim of this killer as anyone.

1. Gomorrah

The complete opposite of most gangster films, Gomorrah doesn’t have a single shred of glamour. The people here are horrible, rotten individuals and the film has none of the sheen of a Scorsese or Coppolla epic. Instead it makes for grim, depressing viewing – the people here are caught in the web of organised crime and there’s no way out. Split into different stories, the most captivating is that of two young bozos who steal some mafia guns. Filled with dreams of Scarface and the glory of a violent death, they exemplify everything that is wrong with the movie-filled conception of what it is to be a gangster. Gangsters aren’t glamorous and they’re not people to emulate. They’re rotten lowlifes who don’t value human life and who worship greed. Their lives are cheap and disposable. Another excellent thread is the one that deals with a corrupt businessman who dumps toxic waste onto a future building site. Now Naples is literally a toxic waste dump instead of just being a metaphorical one.

Five Worst Crime Films

5. Gone Baby Gone

A promising beginning soon gives way to utter nonsense as a conspiracy concerning the kidnapping of a young girl unfolds. The twists and turns are completely ridiculous and don’t feel organic at all. I mean, an apparently benevolent police chief who turns out to be a bastard who kidnaps children. This is schlocky film bullshit of the highest order.

4. Cassandra’s Dream

With the brilliant Crimes and Misdemeanours, Woody Allen has proved that he can make an excellent crime movie. Sadly, though, with Match Point and Cassandra’s Dream, his touch deserted him. Both are fairly awful experiences, with Cassandra’s Dream being the worst of the two. Starring Ewan McGregor and Colin Farrell as two fuckwit brothers, they’re lured into killing a poor sap by their malevolent uncle. It’s painful to watch McGregor and Farrell struggling to pull off a convincing London accent and both characters are Forrest Gump stupid. Therefore the supposed tragic ending ends up being unintentionally hilarious.

3. The Boondock Saints

An inept film in every regard, The Boondock Saints features some of the most abysmal writing and directing known to man. The structure of the film basically revolves around Willem Defoe twatting about at a crime scene and firing his fingers like guns as we get to see the crime replayed to us. If it were done once, it would be tolerable, but its not. And then you have the central characters. All of them are reprehensible wankers but we’re somehow supposed to look up to them. Plus they slaughter loads of people in the name of god. Fuck these arseholes, fuck this film and fuck the cult that has sprung up around it.

2. Base-moi

Kind of like Natural Born Killers with French lesbians. And like that film, it’s utter shit. Grannies give blow-jobs and a man gets a gun rammed up his arse. It’s another one of those murderous lovers on the run films that had me wishing that I could walk into the film with a gun and kill the characters just so that I could end the pain.

1. Get Carter

I can understand the desire to remake Get Carter. Mike Hodge’s seminal gangster film, while quintessentially British, is easily translatable. It really shouldn’t be that hard to update it and transport it to America. But sadly, the filmmakers here change everything about the film that makes it unique. They take an incredibly tough film and try and make it audience friendly. It’s a watered down version of Get Carter. And the casting of Stallone is a stupid decision. Carter isn’t meant to be a beefcake. He’s supposed to survive with his intelligence and ruthlessness. Basically you’ve taken a cobra and turned him into a pitbull. And even worse, this pitbull has had all its teeth removed and they’ve put a muzzle on it. It’s a textbook example of how not to do a remake.

Brad Pitt

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Monday, January 19, 2009

After the dizzying heights of Zodiac, David Fincher comes crashing back to earth with The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Here’s a film with a marvellous premise – a man being born old and gradually growing younger – that never takes flight. It’s a bafflingly empty experience.

The key problem is the passivity of the main character. Do we ever get to know him? Do we ever get inside his head? No we don’t. And there’s such scope for human emotion. Here’s a man who’s unlike any other. Here’s a man destined to become more youthful and beautiful as those around him decay and wither. But we never get any sense of sadness, or confusion, or anger. Benjamin Button never asks ‘why me?’ He just glides through life, seemingly all too happy to have been thrown this curveball.

But just think of what could have been done with this character. Denied youth for almost 60 years, and forced to become humble before his time, he could have given into brashness and arrogance later in life. Instead he just sleeps with a couple of women (or three). Or he could have even suffered the ignominy of having a youthful body but an old mind. He could have suffered the onset of dementia while looking like James Dean. But no, as a young man (even though he’s apparently old inside) he seems to have a young mind, too. So therefore I didn’t feel anything for him because he didn’t seem to feel anything himself. The only time the character seems to have some real sense of self-awareness is when he leaves his beloved Daisy because she’s pregnant and he doesn’t want her to have to bring up two children. But this is done is a completely half-assed manner. They have a stilted conversation and he goes. Instead of coming over as a doomed individual, he just seems flaky, and where’s the tragedy in that?

The only time I really felt anything for Benjamin was when he becomes a child and he can’t remember anything. At one point he sits on the roof and thinks he can fly. To have lived a full life and to lose all those memories to the passage of time is truly sad, but the film just suddenly comes to this. There’s no progression. You never get the feeling that things are slipping away from Button. One minute he’s a beautiful teenager with his memory and character intact, and the next he’s a helpless child. I wanted to feel time slipping away from him. I wanted to feel the terror that he’d feel, knowing that he was shrinking into himself. But instead the ending kind of feels like an afterthought. It’s there to tie everything up.

Despite this, at the end, you have the film’s most beautiful and heartbreaking image – a long shot of two old lovers walking down the street, but one of those people is an elderly lady and the other is a child. It has a strangeness that makes it striking and touching – the devotion of Daisy to see things through to the end finally makes you feel something for these people.

Unfortunately, though, there’s no chemistry between Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett. Therefore most of the film is a dead loss. How are you supposed to invest in characters when the passion between them is non-existent?

And Fincher’s idea of romance is more than a little adolescent. What do Benjamin and Daisy do when they finally become an item? Why they go sailing into the sunset on a beautiful yacht, of course. Pur-lease. I’d expect this from someone like Richard Curtis, not the man who made Zodiac and Seven.

And the scene where a teenage Benjamin turns up to woo an elderly Daisy one last time just doesn’t work. It’s meant to be the emotional highlight, but it’s just a little weird. And it’s weird because the teenage Button seems to have completely black, lifeless eyes. It really put me off. And it also doesn’t work because it all feels more than a little cold. This is meant to be their last hurrah, but it feels like either of them could take it or leave it. I never got the feeling that this was some great romance.

You also have to get over the fact that the two characters first meet when one looks very old and when one looks very young. Does this ever enter their minds? Does Daisy fantasise about the wrinkly old man and does Benjamin fantasise about the perky, little girl? Who knows…

Another relationship that doesn’t work is the one between Benjamin and his father. You see, Benjamin’s father is dismayed when he sees that his son is ugly as sin. Therefore he goes through town and dumps him on the steps of an old person’s home. You’d think this abandonment might piss Benjamin off. But it doesn’t really. When he finally finds out who his father is he seems nonplussed. He doesn’t really go searching for answers to who he is – he just politely listens. This crushing passivity suffocates drama at every turn.

The only really enjoyable element of the film is the visuals. The film is gorgeous to look at. In particular, I love the first scene where Thomas Button runs through town as fireworks burst in the air (it’s the end of the Great War). The photography is gorgeous and the period detail is impeccable. But pretty early on you realise this is all the film has to offer – a beautiful exterior without a heart. Honestly, I ended up using the film as a kind of clothes catalogue. I’ve already noted that I should get a white t-shirt and leather jacket (although I guess I’ll do without the Triumph motorcycle). But aside from that, I got nothing from this movie.

And it’s quite sad when the trailer for the film is so much better than the film itself. Just watch the first teaser. It literally shows the whole film from beginning to end, only minus the lifeless filler in-between. It got me really excited for this film – it looked like it had something magical to offer. But along the way someone forgot that a film doesn’t exist on beautiful visuals alone – you need a human drama to anchor it, something that is sorely lacking here.

Anthony Edwards

Zodiac

Sunday, March 30, 2008

While Dirty Harry was a magnificent example of fantastical Hollywood filmmaking, a story that while gloriously entertaining didn’t try and reflect the real world, Zodiac is a more grounded attempt at telling the story of a serial killer loose in San Francisco. Yes Fincher’s direction is as flamboyant as ever and yes it’s a glossy big budget movie, but with its emphasis on the minutia of detective work and with its unresolved ending, it’s a brave attempt at reflecting the reality of the case. The film doesn’t provide you with any answers – it’s a mystery that will remain as such long after the credits have rolled.

The film opens on the 4th July in 1969. Fireworks fill the sky and we see a young man take a ride in a car with an older woman. It’s an idealistic picture of America – a couple going to a diner, a nation celebrating its independence, the last summer of a great decade. But despite the fireworks and the promises of a brighter future, there’s a dark shadow looming around the corner. America’s innocence, if it ever existed, isn’t going to last long.

The attack on the two kids is a superb piece of cinema. We see them awkwardly talking as they pull up by a lake and then a car appears behind them. At first its headlights shine brightly, but then they’re turned off, adding to the unspoken menace. But then the car drives off. However, it’s not long before it returns. With the light from a flashlight shining in their eyes, they maybe think it’s a cop, but then the shadowy figure opens fire on them. It’s a senseless attack, and one that is masterfully filmed, edited and scored – I love the use of Donovan’s ‘Hurdy Gurdy Man’; it’s a psychedelic rock song, one that while seemingly upbeat and positive has a dark undercurrent to it. It works perfectly for the scene. And then after the attack we see the boy sitting outside his car, near the point of death, as the Zodiac phones the authorities to tell them of his crime. The calmness of his voice is quietly chilling, as is the way he says, ‘Good-bye’ like it’s two separate words. Here’s a person who is killing just for the thrill of it.

The second attack isn’t the grandstanding piece of cinema that the first is, but it’s equally effective. We see another young couple driving to a lake. There they encounter a masked man with a gun. He says he’s escaped from prison and the couple think they’re just going to be robbed. The young man even offers to write the masked man a cheque. But then after being tied up and after assuring his female companion that everything is going to be okay, the masked man casually stabs them. It’s shocking in how nonchalantly they’re attacked – their daytrip may consist of a picnic and kisses by the lake, but the Zodiac’s idea of fun is completely different. And there’s a great moment where after being tied up, the man asks the Zodiac if the gun was even loaded. The Zodiac then holds the gun close to his face and shows that yes it was loaded. It’s a great moment because the gun is distorted by the camera lens – it looks even larger and therefore more threatening; our lives hang by a thread and it takes very little for someone to come along and snuff us out of existence.

And it’s maybe that sort of power that the serial killer has over us that makes them so fascinating. They don’t adhere to the rules that society lays down for the rest of us. Therefore we’re amazed by them and maybe we even admire them in a perverse way. We want to hate them, but at the same we want to consume every lurid detail of their exploits and maybe even indulge in daydreams about the people we’d off if we were batshit crazy like they are. Or if we don’t have some sort of distant, guilty admiration for their utter lack of self-control, we want to at least understand them; we want an insight into their twisted soul. And of course, this hunger for answers is even more pressing when so few are made available to us.

This is why Robert Graysmith invests himself so deeply in the case. He wants to understand. He wants answers. But it says something sad about human nature when he finds a killer more fascinating than his children or his wife. Somehow we’re acknowledging that serial killers are extraordinary simply because they refuse to go along with the rest of us. They don’t create anything, they don’t expand our understanding of life and the cosmos. But because they don’t listen to the little voice in our heads that says ‘no’, they immediately become worthy of our attention.

But despite the attention that we lavish on them, what would we really find out if we could get into their heads? That they hate? That they’re mad? The answers will always be mundane, but a desire for answers will remain as long as the killer is unidentified. Wars we can understand. Natural disasters can be explained. Diseases don’t even perturb us that much because we arrogantly feel that we can do something to avoid getting them. But we need to unmask serial killers because we need the reassurance – we need to know that the person is really human, that there isn’t a supernatural demon lurking in the shadows that is going to snatch us away without warning.

The film taps into this wonderfully. Robert Graysmith’s whole quest is a quest for this reassurance. He needs to be able to look someone in the eye and know it’s them – he needs to know that it’s a mere mortal who is out there. This leads him down various dark alleys, one of which involves him going to a man’s house in order to talk to a friend of a suspect. Graysmith has a sample of what he thinks is the Zodiac’s handwriting, only to find out that the handwriting belongs to the man he’s speaking to. Graysmith is then led down into the basement where he hears the floorboards creaking above him. It’s a very creepy scene, but we’re denied any payoff. Graysmith isn’t attacked and the killer isn’t revealed. The mystery remains.

After that, Graysmith tries to bully the sister of a victim into naming the killer. He just wants an answer; he wants it to be over – briefly he doesn’t care about the truth. But then he finds out about one of the prime suspects.

Arthur Leigh Allen is the only serious suspect that the film puts forward. But at the same time we’re never told that it’s him. We only have the information that the investigation gives us, that the man was a paedophile, that he owned guns, that his timeline fitted with the Zodiac, that he blabbed important information to a fishing buddy, that his watch bears the name zodiac and that it has the crosshair logo that the Zodiac’s letters used, and that he was spotted on the weekend of one of the murders with bloody knifes in his car that were supposedly used to slaughter a chicken. But even though we have all of this information, along with tasty titbits that his freezer is full of dead squirrels and that he fucks himself in the arse with a wooden dildo, there’s still nothing concrete to tie him to the killings. Like Robert Graysmith and the detectives who investigated the case, we can only look at him and draw our own conclusions on all the circumstantial evidence. Everything screams that this is the man, but we never know for certain.

Hollywood thinking dictates that a lack of a firm resolution is deeply unsatisfying, but this most certainly isn’t the case for Zodiac. The film ends with a victim identifying Arthur Leigh Allen as his attacker, but the man can’t say for certain. And although at the end we discover that Allen died of a heart attack before he could be interviewed again, DNA evidence supposedly cleared him. A concrete answer would only turn the Zodiac into another serial killer, but without it he obtains almost mythic status. He becomes the bogeyman we all fear but which we’re fascinated by.

But although I love the mythic side to the film (ending the film with ‘Hurdy Gurdy Man’ is a master touch, reminding it as it does of the first killing and suggesting that the Zodiac might still be out there), it also works wonderfully as a police procedural. We see the bureaucracy that the detectives face and the hurdles they have to overcome in order to do their job. There’s a great little scene where the cops have to put their case forward in order to get a warrant to search Allen’s premises. Unlike Dirty Harry it’s not a simple case of finding the guy and then blowing him away.

And there’s also something quite sad in the amount of time that is dedicated to hunting this one individual (if the Zodiac was indeed one individual). Years go by, people grow older and yet the detectives are still on the case. One beautiful sequence illustrates this perfectly – we see the Trans America Pyramid being built. Everything around these people is changing as they’re hunting a phantom from the past.

However, for Anthony Edwards’ cop it all proves too much. After years he quits the case. In an understated scene we see him say goodbye to his partner with very few words expressed between the two. There are lots of emotions there, but neither can express them.

But one of the most memorable images from the film is of the detectives walking through a maze of superimposed words. No one can see the wood for the trees. Has this man killed as many people as he claims? Is he a liar who takes credit for other people’s work? Either way his campaign was a success. With the help of the media he created a myth and a mystery that hasn’t been solved, and as long as that mystery remains he’ll always be exceptional. People may want to solve the mystery, but it’ll only remain interesting while the answer is elusive.

Brian Glover

Alien 3

Sunday, March 02, 2008

Alien 3, by and large, is considered a poor film. Most people see it as a lazy re-hash of the first instalment and most people hate the way that it dispensed with the other surviving characters of Aliens. Well, I can kind of see their point. Alien 3 does opt for the dark, claustrophobic atmosphere of the first and it does have the same stalk and slash mentality – there are no big guns here. And yes, it does rather ruthlessly kill off the characters of Aliens. But I can't really see it being any other way. The Alien series isn't about Hicks or Newt. It's about Ripley, and it's always been her alone against the Alien. To have Hicks and Newt tagging along would feel like Aliens Revisited. It would just be, for the second time, Ripley fighting the Alien to protect her surrogate daughter. At least here she gets to do something different. It isn't a fight for survival, or a fight to protect Newt. It's a fight to keep the Alien away from The Company.

One of the many things that annoyed and enraged me about Alien: Resurrection (now there's an Alien film truly worthy of revulsion) was the way that they dispensed with the main villain of the piece, the mysterious, all-seeing company. That was one of the fun things in the series. You felt like there was something bigger and more important going on. And the filmmakers developed it superbly. In the first film it was only on the periphery. But in the second film, with Burke, it was brought to the front. So I like the way that Alien 3 develops it even further. The Company has an almost Orwellian presence. It seems to see everything. And so Ripley's fight to kill the Alien before The Company can get its hands on it seems entirely convincing. Indeed, there's a great scene – one of those rabble-rousing moments you only see in films – where she explains The Company's motivation to the prisoners. It's an excellent nod to the fans and one that gets you even more fully behind her cause. Don't trust those greedy capitalists, man.

Of course, the company man in the film (Aaron, played by Ralph Brown) is a stupid sheep, but rather than ape what Cameron did with Burke – and make him totally untrustworthy – he's just a man trying to do his job and earn a living. And at the end, after lots of abuse from the prisoners, he actually grows a set of balls and takes a swipe at one of the company men. Too bad, then, that this action gets him killed. I mean, during the final sequence, when all the prisoners are being chased by the Alien in the maze, he finds a quiet room and sits it out. I thought, then, that this might show a new dawning of intelligence. But instead, after looking like he's been saved, he does something brave, but stupid, and gets himself killed. I guess you've got to know when to pick your fights.

Another complaint that people seem to toss in the direction of Alien 3 is that the characters all look the same. Well, personally, I think the characters stand out pretty well. Sure they may all have shaved craniums, but I think that the writing and the acting are pretty damn strong. They all have distinct personalities – which is a pretty good feat when you're dealing with rapists, murders and pederasts – and it's only the ones that get killed in seconds that feel generic. Dillon stands out the most. He's the kind of hardnut that can kick your head in and say something poetic at the same time. Plus, he takes the Alien on in hand-to-hand combat and insults the Alien's fighting skills as he's being killed. How can you not dig a man like that? I also think that Charles Dance is great. He gets killed off rather early, but he makes his scenes count. And he even gets to sleep with Ripley. Sure, in film tradition, this means that he has to die, but hey, at least he went there. And Brian Glover, Ralph Brown, Pete Postlethwaite and Paul McGann are superb. Plus I like the way that one of the more peripheral characters survives the whole ordeal.

And the film is also quite poetic. The cremation scene in particular stands out. It has some great dialogue, a fantastic score and the Alien birth is beautiful in a perverse way. And the final moments, too, are great.

But what of the Alien in this film? Well, aside from the occasional dodgy bit of effects work in the maze sequence – it sometimes moves like its got piles – it's excellent. It's certainly better than the CGI and gloop covered monsters of Resurrection. And it gets some pretty good moments. The killing where the blood sprays over Paul McGann's face is nice, as is the amusing killing of Brain Glover. And I also like the bit where it meets Ripley face to face. Somehow, in the Jeunet film, the Aliens were no longer threatening, but in Alien 3 it still has the right stuff.

And I think the film would have been a fitting end to the series. Ripley finally meets The Company and she sacrifices herself to deny them and to save mankind. That's pretty good going in my book. And I wouldn't have thought the character would have had anywhere to go if they somehow would have managed to bring her back to life. Well, when I first saw it, I had hopes for Resurrection, but unfortunately, I was proved right. The series should have ended here.

Directed by David Fincher
Written by David Giler, Walter Hill and Larry Ferguson
Produced by Gordon Carroll, David Giler and Walter Hill
Original Music by Elliot Goldenthal
Cinematography by Alex Thomson
Starring Sigourney Weaver, Charles S. Dutton, Charles Dance and Ralph Brown

Running Time: 114 mins

Rated R for monster, monster violence

David Fincher

Panic Room

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Panic Room is one of those films where the premise is better than the execution. That's not to say it's a bad film, certainly not, but it does suffer somewhat from a mediocre script, thin characterization and a lackluster ending.

The main problem I have with Panic Room is how dumb the three thieves are. They enter the film like The Three Stooges, immediately undermining the tension that their entrance generates. I mean, for the film to work as strongly as it could, they should be a major threat, but instead they enter the film while bickering like a bunch of numbskulls. And two of them even think they can break through concrete and three inch steel with a sledgehammer. You're dealing with mental midgets here.

Stupidest of the three is Leto's character. He doesn't know how escrow works, he puts his head against the wall when Foster is about to ignite the gas they're pumping into the panic room, he shouts at a PA system and he exposes his plan to screw over his fellow burglars simply by talking to himself. The extent of his stupidity is really too much to ask of an audience with any intelligence and his whole character smacks of lazy writing.

But thankfully Leto's character gets shot halfway through. And his killing is nicely done. It's quick, it's brutal and it allows the unhinged Raoul to step up to the plate as the main villain. And although Raoul is a knob and a bit of a rent-a-psycho, he does make for a suitably intimidating villain. And it's even more impressive considering that the actor who plays him, Dwight Yoakam, is a country music star. He may sing hick music, but he turns in a superb performance.

But although Yoakam is excellent, the film easily belongs to Foster. She's strong, she's resourceful and she's entirely believable as a mother who'll blow your head off if you mess around with her kid. After all, is there anything more dangerous than a mother backed into a corner? Personally I'd rather take on a 6-foot-4, 300-pound, bum-hungry redneck called Bubba than a 5-foot-4 woman who wants to defend her kid. The burglars should have left the second they realised they were dealing with a 'mom'.

However, while I can easily believe in Foster managing to wrestle a gun off of the psychotic Raoul (again illustrating how stupid the thieves are, Raoul at one point tells her to come out of hiding so he can shoot her and get things over. Didn't he ever have a mum?), her MacGyver routine stretches credibility – igniting the gas is fair enough, but there's one bit where she somehow hooks up the phone line. She even says, "I have no idea" when her daughter asks her what she's doing. It's obvious that Koepp (the writer) has written himself into a corner and this is the result: suddenly she's a phone expert. But I'm willing to overlook these sorts of things as Fincher gives us ample opportunity to stare at Foster's cleavage when things get silly. It was actually an excellent decision to have her spend virtually the whole film in a black vest, as you're never too far from jiggling breasts, which is fair compensation for gaps in logic.

All this shallowness has made me forget Foster's best moment, the bit when she sadistically kicks the door to torture Raoul after he gets his fingers trapped. Like I said before, don't mess with a mom. When you mess with a mom you enter a world of pain.

Back to the script problems…

The scene where the police turn up is poorly written. Not only does the main cop show far too much interest for a man in his line of work but he even asks Foster if she wants to communicate by blinking her eyes. Even movie cops shouldn't act this silly. Then there's the way that Foster's claustrophobia is disposed of. What's the point in establishing a problem if you're not going to use it?

You can even sense Fincher's disinterest in the script in his flashy direction. It's like he has to invent lots of complicated shots to keep him from getting bored. But I do have to say that visually the film is superb. There are some wonderful shots. Although I have to say that I prefer the simpler visuals. For example, I love the use of widescreen – there's one great shot when you have the lift going down on one side of the frame and Leto kicking the door on the other. And I also love Fincher's use of slow motion. The scene where Foster escapes the panic room to grab her phone is excellent, especially in the way that it builds tension by slowing everything down and removing the sound. But the flashier computer shots – the 'camera' flies into locks, torches and through chairs – smacks too much of empty grandstanding. Fincher should have worried more about the script.

But although the script is decidedly average and although in the end things get too silly – Raoul gets hit in the head with a sledgehammer and falls several floors but still survives to fight some more – I did enjoy the film. It's certainly helped by Fincher's visual sense and the amazing house (if I were a commie instead of a greedy capitalist, I'd say it was obscene to have two people live in such a huge place). Oh yeah, and of course, it's helped by Foster. She can do the strong woman thing in her sleep but she always does it well.

Directed by David Fincher
Written by David Koepp
Produced by Ceán Chaffin, Judy Hofflund, David Koepp and Gavin Polone
Original Music by Howard Shore
Cinematography by Conrad W. Hall and Darius Khondji
Starring Jodie Foster, Kristen Stewart, Forest Whitaker, Dwight Yoakam and Jared Leto

Running Time: 112 mins

Rated R for violence, language and unnecessarily flashy CGI

Films of the Decade: Crime

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Zodiac

Alien 3

Panic Room

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