Don't Say a Word Review
by Eugene Novikov (lordeugene_98 AT yahoo DOT com)October 29th, 2001
Don't Say a Word (2001)
Reviewed by Eugene Novikov http://www.ultimate-movie.com/
"You want what they want."
Starring Michael Douglas, Sean Bean, Famke Janssen, Oliver Platt, Brittany Murphy. Directed by Gary Fleder. Rated R.
Don't Say a Word is one of the most unremarkable thrillers in recent memory. Its plot is the skeleton that movies like this usually build on, but this script leaves it bare. This would be fine, but it's not terribly good, either: even with the added authenticity that star Michael Douglas brings, the movie is plodding and lacking in logic. It doesn't do its very creepy trailer justice.
Shockingly, Michael Douglas plays a rich urbanite; namely, Dr. Nathan Conrad, a successful psychiatrist with a posh Manhattan apartment, a beautiful but temporarily disabled wife (Famke Janssen) and a happy pre-teen daughter. The film revels in setting up the family's pitch-perfect existence only to send everything to hell minutes later, when a Bad Guy (Sean Bean) kidnaps the smallest member of the Conrad household. He demands not a monetary ransom, but potentially valuable information.
You see, Dr. Conrad just received a pro bono patient; a troubled teenage girl (Brittany Murphy) who has, buried deep within her, a six-digit number that has something to do with a jewel heist that went wrong ten years ago. At the same time, a hardened NYPD detective (Jennifer Esposito) tries to put together a mystery involving two dead bodies somehow connected, and the bedridden Mrs. Conrad tries to overcome the urge to call the police, which would, according to her husband, ensure the death of her daughter.
Despite what I said at the top of this review, Don't Say a Word does have a spin on the kidnap-and-ransom genre: Conrad has to use everything he learned in medical school to get the fateful number out of the stubborn girl. Or he would have to, if the movie would let him. Curiously, director Gary Fleder (Kiss the Girls) spends most of his time on less interesting and far more conventional plot lines - the bad guys' surveillance, the mother's dilemma, the detective's investigation - than on the one that would make his film special. I expected to see the film's climax involve a psychological battle of wits; instead, we see the protagonist turn into a vigilante and hit people with shovels and other blunt instruments.
And that's the film's main problem. Its first two-thirds are, at the very least, effective: moody and atmospheric, with a terrific production design and predictably expert performance by Douglas. Not even Sean Bean's endless posturing gets in the way. But as Dr. Conrad's life comes crashing down, so does the film. In the last act, all traces of believability are almost systematically eliminated, and Douglas's character - a doctor -- somehow becomes an action hero.Not only that, but the revelation regarding the six-digit number is absurdly anti-climactic. We wonder if the screenwriter came up with the premise of the mystery with no idea what the solution would be, and then invented it hastily and under pressure.
The film's most exciting moment occurs when Dr. Conrad is rushing to the hospital and runs into a parade. He's not allowed to speak to the police, and when an officer accosts him, what does he do? He gets himself a police escort. It's the most suspenseful scene in Don't Say a Word, and one of the few in which our markedly intelligent protagonist actually has to use his wits to get himself out of a jam.
Grade: C+
Up Next: Training Day
©2001 Eugene Novikov
Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
