Spoiler Review of the film 'Panic Room'

I chose to do a spoiler review of the film Panic Room, it is an edge of seat thriller that leaves you tense and thinking throughout. The film starts with a woman (Meg) and her daughter (Sarah) buying a new house, the house is huge and contains a panic room. The entirety of the story from this point on is set inside the house and the panic rooom.

Main Plot Summary
The basic plot of the film is that three men break into the house attempting to rob it. They find Meg and Sarah in the house and were surprised as they expected to find it empty. Meg and Sarah hide in the panic room thinking they can just wait until the robbers have left. what they dont however realise is that what the robbers want is inside the panic room, meaning the place they ran to expecting to be safe has actually put them in a position of greater danger.

 

The image above is a shot of a scene in which the robbers are telling Meg why they are in the house, the fact they have to communicate by words makes it much more dramatic as the written words make more of a definate statement than if they had been spoken. It also shows how detached from the world Meg and Sarah are in the panic room

Many attempts are made by the robbers to attempt the panic room, one of which is the use of propane to gas Meg and Sarah. this backfires on them however when Meg ignites the gas resulting in the character 'juniors' face being badly burnt. Meg manages to sneak out of the panic room whilst the intruders are arguing amongst themselves, she connects the phone from the wall in the panic room to the still active phoneline allowing her to call her husband. She is cut off mid sentence before she can explain the danger to her husband. When junior tries to leave he is shot by Raoul before a major plot twist which involves the womans husband arriving and ends with the 2 remaining burglars and the Sarah in the panic room leaving Meg outside with a gun. Whilst inside the room Meg has some kind of seizure and Burnham has to administer her injection to stop her entering a coma. whilst doing so he says

                            "i did not want to do this, i only agreed to it to give my daughter a better life"

Once they have the money the robbers attempt to
leave using sarah as a hostage. Meg then hits Raoul with a sledge hammer and burnham flees with the money. However Raoul lives and pins down meg, just as he is about to kill her burnmham returns and shoots him
saving her life and therefore the lives of Sarah and the husband. the police then arrive in bulk after obviously being suspicious of Megs earlier behaviour, they capture burnham and the film ends with meg and sarah on a park bench looking for a new house.

Key Moments:
- Race at the start of the film to enter the panic room
- When we are told that the robbers intend to enter the room
- Sarahs SOS signal to the neighbour
- Megs journey to get the mobile phone
- Landline phonecall to husband, cut off mid sentence
- Raoul shooting junior
- Discovery of Sarahs medical condition
- Meg leaving panic room to find injection for Sarah
- Burnham and Raoul entering Panic Room with Sarah leaving Meg outside with gun
- Burnham showing humanity administering injection to Sarah
- Police arriving at the door
- Meg attacking Raoul
- Raoul sitting over Meg about to kill her
- Bunhams change of heart as he returns to save Megs life and kill Raoul
- Police arriving when everything is over, arrest of Burnham

Key Aspects of Why It Is a Thriller:
The film fits all the classifications of being a thriller, it is set in a practically deserted house with many doors and hallways giving many places for intruders to hide, making the house a very suspenseful environment. also the entirety of the film takes place at night time, setting the low key lighting that is often present in thrillers. this lack of light sets the tone for the film and makes it clear that it is serious. the house is situated in a city yet still no neighbours have any idea of what is happening. this is key to the common thriller factor of things taking place in real life situations, and the most busy places without anybody realising. The characters fit the thriller checklist perfectly, we know near to nohing about them at the start but as the film goes on we progressively gain more knowledge and we work out what characters we can trust and which ones we should like or dislike. the character of Burnham is essential as he is a burglar meaning we dislike him at the start but as the film goes on we see he does not want too harm sarah or meg and does in effect save both their lives making us sympathise with him. at the end when he is caught the viewer almost feels sorry for him and wishes he had esced, showing th ecomplexity of thriller characters used in this movie. the film also makes use of guns and high tech equipment which is also a common aspect of thriller films, the panic room itself is a single piece of high tech equipment.

Conclusions and Overall Rating
The film delivers everything that you want and expect from a thriller. it has a complex storyline which is changing all the time so you cannot settle down at any point in the film. The fact that it is set in one house for the entirety of the film creates a very strong feeling of suspense as you know trhat there is nowhere the character can go so some kind of death or confrontratin is inevitable. the film keeps the audience involved as it does not settle down at anytime, you see a lot of the film from the perspective of Meg or the burglars meaning that you as the viewer are trying to work out ways to escape but also ways to brake in. Making it more complex and entertaining than other thrillers in which you often only see the film from one perspective.
I would rate the film 4.5/5 as i really enjoyed it and thought it was a brilliant example of a thriller but the ending was somewhat predictable.