Don't Say a Word (2001) Rated: R for violence, including some gruesome images, and language. Runtime: 113 mins. Director: Gary Fleder Writer: Andrew Klavan (novel), Anthony Peckham (screenplay) Tagline: ...I'll Never Tell. Cast: Michael Douglas, Brittany Murphy....complete cast Genre: Thriller
Most memorable quote: "...I'll never tell."
I love psychological thrillers, especially when you have your psychologically disturbed mental patient who is the key to solving a crime. Like Silence of the Lambs with its Hannibal Lecter and Jame Gum and Se7en with its John Doe played by Kevin Spacey, we are often given the cinematic treat of some of the most compelling and disturbing insights into the criminally insane mind. I guess my expectations for this one were a bit high. Although we learned a lot about the premise of this movie from the trailer, there's not a whole lot more to it save for the performance of Brittany Murphy.
Kidnappers want a bit of information that is stored inside the mind of a disturbed teenage mental patient, Elisabeth, played by Brittany Murphy, who displays a very convincing performance. By kidnapping New York City psychologist Nathan Conrad's (Michael Douglas) daughter, they hope to force him to "therapy" the missing information out of her.
We find out that for the last 10 years this girl has been diagnosed with almost every type of mental disorder in the book, yet Dr. Conrad must find a way to coax the information out of her in less than a day. Although a bit unbelievable, it is quite interesting what Dr. Conrad discovers about this girl and his method of retrieving the information from the recesses of her mind.
There are several unbelievable sequences in this movie, including one in which the Conrad's discover that after awakening on Thanksgiving morning, they discover that their daughter is missing and that their entire house has been wired for video surveillance. Additionally, not only were the bad guys able wire the house, but were also able to plant an audio bug in a hospital room of a maximum security nervous hospital for the criminally insane. This brought up an interesting discussion in my household about whether or not we would awaken if someone were to break in to our house during the night, kidnap our child and perform a detailed electronic procedure, even in our own bedroom!
A couple of subplots run parallel to the main story. We have Detective Sandra Cassidy (Jennifer Esposito) who discovers that Dr. Conrad has clandestinely removed Elisabeth from the hospital yet she is always just one step behind. We have Dr. Conrad's wife, played by the extremely hot Famke Janssen, who is bedridden with a broken leg and will do anything motherly possible to save her daughter including practically eating the cast from her leg.
A little bit of mystery and intrigue involved in the closing sequences is quickly dismissed by the overproduced, Hollywood ending involving open graves, shovels to the head multiple times, wrestling with handguns and our detective Cassidy who finally isn't one step behind.
This movie is a bit too disturbing to be good date material so I'll give it a low number in the "get lucky" category. I expected this movie to be much more creepy, but it kind of falls short in this area so I'll give it a mediocre "Se7en" rating. The ending could have been much more compelling and a bit less Hollywood, so it gets a fairly low "wrap-up" factor rating.
January 8, 2003 Response: "In my opinion this movie was the kind of psychological thriller that captures my interest and keeps me hooked.
Screen formats: Widescreen
Subtitles: None
Sound: English (DTS 5.1 Surround), English (Dolby Digital 5.1), Spanish (Dolby Digital 5.1)
Other Features: Color; interactive menus; scene access; audio commentary with Gary Fleder ; select scene commentaries by Michael Douglas, Sean Bean, Brittany Murphy, Famke Janssen & Oliver Platt; multi-angle storyboard scenes; trailer; TV spots; conversation with Gary Fleder; production workshop; screen test; making-of featurette; cast and crew information.
Don't Say a Word (2001)
