I was able to see The Panic Room by lying. I am actually working member of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

I wrote down that I was a food service employee. I got in.

I'll cut to the chase.

I was able to see David Fincher's newest effort excitingly entitled The Panic Room tonight. This will be a basically be a spoiler free review as I tend to think people should experience things for themselves.

David FIncher's latest outing (The Panic Room) is a predictable [and sometimes entertaining] film that is more style than substance.

The Panic Room stars Jodie Foster as a woman who is just coming down off a tumultous marriage and she is buying a overly large and creepy brownstone house in Manhattan for her and her 13-14 year old daughter to live in.

That is the premise of the film.

Basically that's it, a woman who has lost everything buys a huge scary mansion in Manhattan's upper east side for her and her 1 daughter to live in. However much this setup seems intriguing it's not, every step is contrived, the mother who happens to have a fear of confined spaces ends up in that confined space. The daughter who is a tom boy know it all and by the way is a diabetic and of course there is terror in the panic room as she is without her insulin, {oh my gosh}.

Of course, the film takes place mostly on a dark and gloomy night as the rain comes pouring down and the thunder clapps. And unbelievably enough, in one scene you could see the wind machine blowing the trees around on the streets of Manhattan, I was shocked.

Never have I been so let down by a director who has done nothing but blown my expectations in each of his previous such as Alien 3, Fight Club, The Game and Seven. The beauty of a FIncher film is that you never know what you're going to get. In The Panic Room the audience knows exactly what it's going to get and when. It's a thriller, nothing to figure out, nothing to wonder about.

Jared Leto turns in one of the worst performances I have seen in a long time as one of the intruders over acting in every scene he is in. When his screen time is over, it is a welcome relief. He was AWFUL!!!!!! What was he trying to prove?? Perhaps the director thought that to make Jared look mean and evil he should have corn rolls and a beard, then he will look scary. Oh My God I was so threatened by him.........PLEASE Jared Leto is a pretty boy and he knows it, the world knows it. Lately he has been trying to play that down by taking roles that seem to want to squelch any evidence that he is a beautiful person.

Jodie Foster turns in another great performance in a hollow role along with Forest Whittaker and Dwight Yoakam who both play 2 of the three intruders. Again, like Ms. Foster, Yoakam and Whittaker do the best they can with very one dimensional roles. A woman who has seemingly lost everything doesn't have much more to loose does she? The terror can be seen ten miles away as the house scary from the get go.

There's not much more to say about this film. What hurts the most is that I love Fincher, I have been followng his career for years now and to see shoddy work like this really is a letdown. I'm not sure what he saw in this script. Even the look of the film is typical Fincher, dark greens and browns and camera movements and tricks taken directly from elements of the far superior film, Fight Club. Darius Khondji is Fincher's DP on this film and has been for most of FIncher's films and it's so evident. That's not a bad thing but, it's like, "Okay Fincher, we know your style, now do what you do best and show us something different and askew."

I am the kind of person that wants to like every film I see but I did not like this film, it was not successful. I hung around outside in the hallways of the theater waiting for my friend to finish his questionaire forum and Mr. Fincher was out there with a couple of people. I made a distinct effort to lock eyes with him and I am sure if he saw a 2wenty-something dude with a fifty-esque shirt on with white strips of embroidery down each side staring at him ever so often he would for sure know who I was.

I saw him as he discussed spending 25,000 more on another aspect of the film while one of his brown-nosing friends went on about how amazing the film was. Still though there is this nagging in me that wants to like the film, that maybe, just maybe before the formal release there will be enough changes made to say, "It's a decent film." I dunno though. There's always hope.

Last but not least I will mention the final scene in the film, and this is my only spoiler. After the climax is over and breathing has returned to normal we find Jody Foster sitting with her daughter and the camera is panning back and back and low and behold the World Trade Centers are standing erect and beautiful. It was a disturbing and tasteles contrived thing to do, clearly to get a reaction from the audience. As someone who is close with others who lost friends in the horrible disaster I was creeped out and offended. The fact that this story was about a terrible incident that happens in New York also did not sit well with me either.

You can call me Chamberlain, and that's my report.

Here's someone that is clarifying the charge that Chamberlain just made...