David Fincher's first film was Alien 3. Then he made Se7en! Then he made The Game. Then he made Fight Club! Miss, hit, miss, hit, and now like clockwork he has given us another miss with Panic Room. Does he feel some strange obligation to subvert what made his two great films so great? When Se7en came out, I was in junior high and I found great solace in its depressing nihilism. When Fight Club came out, I was in high school, and while still depressed and nihilistic I had a sense of humor and a sense of consciousness about it, as Fight Club did. His other three films are awfully restrained and flavorless, however. One may be able to call the impact of Se7en and Fight Club shallow or sophomoric, although it's difficult to do so without your voice being heard as castrated and injured. No matter how valid the attack is, the basis will always seem to be that the critic is upset simply from being "hurt and confounded" by the picture. I hear you anyway. If you argue that the doom-and-gloom aesthetics of these films are under-sophisticated, fine for kids in junior high and high school but not for real people, that's fine; just don't dare praise Top Hat or Singin' in the Rain (or any of their cousins) for being fun or pleasurable. They are every bit as under-sophisticated. Anyway, whatever you think of Se7en or Fight Club, they are at least more soulful than this.

Panic Room is not going to be anybody's favorite movie, whereas Se7en and Fight Club have been mine for a while. Panic Room is an often witty (although never quite witty enough) variation of Wait Until Dark. And of course, no variation of Wait Until Dark, no matter how witty, will ever rise that far above mediocre. Thoughtlessness and artlessness are tattooed into its flesh. You don't take anything away from Panic Room. It just moves and happens, without purpose or destination. Not that it isn't engrossing. The most aggravating thing about this damn movie is that it’s incredibly engrossing. We cheer for Jodie Foster and her androgynous daughter because, well, because the film is extremely well-edited and scored and it manipulates us beyond our control. The film almost literally convinces us to say, "Oh, what the hell, let's cheer for Jodie and go along for the ride." It's not exactly because we want to see her succeed. The Foster character and her daughter border close to the inhuman, and there really isn't a hell of a lot of insight to be provided. They exist only to provide an antagonistic influence towards her home invaders, keeping them out of the Panic Room. In the film's third act, they turn protagonistic. The androgynous (and diabetic) daughter goes into shock and is trapped in the Panic Room with two of the thieves. Foster is outside, and the insulin shot is inside. Can she convince the thieves to give her daughter the shot? The conflict is inarguably, indefensibly manipulative, but it works marvelously. If nothing else (what am I saying, it is nothing else), Panic Room is pandering done well.

The film has its share of stupidity. It seemed to me that the film's problem could have been solved pretty easily. Here's my quick re-write.

Foster: Take whatever it is you want and leave.

Whitaker: What we want is in that room!

Foster: Okay, let me find it for you. Once I find it, I'll run out of my Panic Room and put it outside. You stay downstairs; my androgynous daughter will be watching you on our security camera.

Whitaker: What we want is in a safe. You'll need my tools to break into it.

Foster: Okay, bring up your tools to outside my Panic Room. When you get back downstairs to where my androgynous daughter can see you, I'll bring them in and go to work on the safe. You can help talk me through it.

What am I missing here? Sure, there is a lot of running around to be done, but wouldn't everybody just want this to be done as quickly as possible? It seems to me that this simple solution would appease both parties. Just like Wait Until Dark, the woman in distress DOESN'T EVEN KNOW what the thieves are looking for. Get this, somebody else put it there before them. While I understand that this is done to absolve the women from any sort of guilt, they of course have very little at stake in giving the villains what they want. There is no threat of rape, for example. The characters are established early on as guys who simply want to rob the Panic Room, and not as bestial criminals searching for a thrill or a fix. Even the wild "evil" one, Raoul (played by Dwight Yoakam), seems to genuinely believe that force is simply the proper way to get things done. He's not psychotic for giggles in other words, but because he believes it really works. The solution that I provided, flawed or not, at least seems consistent to the nature of the conflict in the film, which is between a justifiably terrified homeowner and some rational and reasonable criminals. I mean, they just want the treasure in the room, remember, it's not like we're dealing with Alex and his droogies.

I have often called Foster's daughter androgynous, and my repetition of this adjective is perhaps a bit of a cruel heterocentric little joke on my part. It's strange that Nicole Kidman was originally planned to be cast in this film. It's a good thing that she couldn't make it. For one thing I think it would have been a reprisal of her role in The Others, and for another we wouldn't have the opportunity to compare old Foster as herself, with young Foster as the daughter. If you look at Foster's work as a child star, you'll see how she is almost the exact same person as the daughter (played by Kristen Stewart here). The two actresses are tomboyish and rebellious. Not masculine as much as simply gender-neutral. As an adult actress, I believe that Foster has the ability to introduce sexual tension in a film, just as she has the ability to entirely repress it, as she does here. As a child actress, of course, Foster had no sexuality; she was simply a child – even, strangely, in a film like Taxi Driver where she played a child prostitute. (Feel comfortable in giving a mild attack to one of my favorites, but can you imagine how much more disturbing that film would be if there was a tangible sexual tension between her and DeNiro?) Kristen Stewart in Panic Room is, of course, similarly non-sexual. Point being, since neither actress exudes any sexuality, we never sense any threat of rape.

Besides, I found the three criminals pretty low on slime. Earlier in the film, we have a bit of affection and sympathy towards them. Forest Whitaker is the smartest and kindest of the thieves. He has a family of his own, and thus isn't incredibly comfortable dealing with the androgynous daughter in insulin shock. It's sort of sweet. David Fincher's films have been famous for having some sort of twist at the end, along with a suicide or attempted suicide. Whitaker's altruistic act at the end of the movie isn't much of a twist, as it's half-expected, and I'm not sure that it’s a suicide, as there is no threat of death. This isn't advancement for Fincher, of course, but a regression. It seems like proof that he isn't really that interested in this material, or at least that he wants to erase any traces of auteruship that can be detected through study of his filmography. Or, if not that, to illustrate how frivolous this film is in comparison to the other films he made, no matter how good.

But anyway, at the end of Panic Room, Whitaker murders Raoul before Raoul can smash open Jodie Foster's head with a sledgehammer. Because Whitaker takes the time to go back and save the day, he is arrested and loses all his money. This altruistic act is important in its own right in establishing how thematically bankrupt the whole thing is. The moral of the story is: if you're going to be a criminal, go all the way. Kind criminals who care about their victims will only end up going to prison. In the film's sequel, I can picture Whitaker getting thirty years, only about ten of which are for breaking and entering and burglary. You could argue that Fincher is trying for some irony here, but you would have to argue pretty hard. The scene reeks of a screenwriter trying to neatly tie up all the loose ends.

It's his one stupid act, really; his partners are bumbling comic relief incarnate. The hotheaded Raoul character is referred to as Joe Pesci at one point. Do they mean Joe Pesci in Goodfellas, or Joe Pesci in Home Alone? I'm actually sort of leaning towards Joe Pesci in Home Alone. The audience delights, myself included, in seeing little Jodie Foster outwit and brutally humiliate and mutilate these idiots. Raoul is the only one of the characters to carry a gun and wear a ski mask. Both seemed like a pretty good idea to him. When he gets in the Panic Room, he accidentally leaves behind his gun and gets his fingers slammed in the door. They don't want to open it, because Foster has the gun. She repeatedly rams herself into the door, making Raoul's hand hurt even more. Because Raoul is so cruel, immoral and, well, stupid, we can easily take great sadistic pleasure in his destruction. Cardinal rule of slapstick is that it’s funny when the victim has dignity and deserves it. Raoul is quite sure of himself and thus has something akin to dignity, and he very much deserves it. An even more pleasurable scene has the thieves trying to gas out the Panic Room by hooking a hose onto a gas tank and releasing the stuff into the ventilation system. Raoul says that they should really put on the gas and really suffocate them, and so his partner (played by Jared Leto) does so. Eventually they decide that if they gas them too much they will pass out and die and then they won't be able to get in there. As they ease up, Leto hears a banging in the system. He puts his ear up to wall to try and detect what it is. It's a lighter that Foster has been trying to ignite inside of the ventilation system. We know that she is trying to ignite it, of course, and they don't. It's an extremely tense scene, with an appropriately hilarious pay-off. My God, I sound like a goon.

You know, if I went to the movies just for entertainment, maybe Panic Room would be enough. When I say that I don't go to movies for entertainment, that makes me sound like I watch them to think or reflect on the world. That's not exactly it either. The movies that I love absorb themselves into my identity. I define myself through them. They celebrate the things that I celebrate. I am provided the sort of companionship and soothing rhythms that an infant is provided through its mother. It's a need that is simultaneously much deeper and much shallower than fun or discussion. This is simply not there with Panic Room. Shallow is the word I'm looking for; there is nothing for you to attach yourself to except the picture's craftsmanship. The film is pointless and benign, more so than any other Fincher film to date. Despite some fairly graphic violence and language, it’s really quite fine for the family. And yet, it pains me to say it, it really is a great night out at the movies. For all its idiocy, for all its shallow sanitary soulnessness, the film is incredibly exciting and funny. Equal parts pop and corn, it's delicious and utterly non-nutritious. I offer the advice that you gotta stop thinking and just go along for the ride. Oh my God, I hate saying that. In an attempt towards redemption, let me remind you that not thinking and going for a ride is not great advice if you ever want to get anywhere special in your existence as a filmgoer. I'm saying that it's stupid and fun, but don't expect me to defend this film on those grounds as much as desperately try to justify my enjoyment of them. Panic Room is an unbelievably well-made and entertaining bit of nonsense, and I would be dishonest to say that I did not find it pleasurable. It is the morning after, dear readers, and trust me, I deeply hate myself.