Trapped in their New York brownstone's panic room, a hidden chamber built as a sanctuary in the event of break-ins, newly divorced Meg Altman and her young daughter Sarah play a deadly game of cat-and-mouse with three intruders - Burnham, Raoul and Junior - during a brutal home invasion. But the room itself is the focal point because what the intruders really want is inside it.
... one of the most ingenious and entertaining thrillers I've seen in quite a long time.
– Richard Roeper,
Ebert & Roeper,
1 Apr 2002
fresh:
There's just no denying Fincher's gifts. Give the guy a camera or two or three, millions upon millions of dollars and state-of-the-art technologies, and there's no stopping him.
– Manohla Dargis,
L.A. Weekly,
1 Jun 2002
fresh:
Fincher mounts some clever, tense sequences in which the trio devises increasingly threatening strategies to force Meg and Sarah out of the panic room, only to be matched with improvised ingenuity from behind the vault door.
– Mark Caro,
Chicago Tribune,
20 Jul 2002
fresh:
Never averse to glistening darkness, meaty metaphor or grandiloquent technical display, Fincher is also surprisingly at home with hokum.
– Geoff Andrew,
Time Out,
24 Jun 2006
fresh:
A thinking-man's women-in-jeopardy picture, Panic Room does about as much as humanly possible with its deliberately restricted one-setting premise.