Don't Say a Word Review
by Christian Pyle (Tlcclp AT aol DOT com)January 3rd, 2002
Don't Say a Word
Reviewed by Christian Pyle
Directed by Gary Fleder
Written by Anthony Peckham and Patrick Smith Kelly (based on the novel by Andrew Klavan)
Starring Michael Douglas, Sean Bean, Brittany Murphy, Famke Janssen, and Jennifer Esposito
Michael Douglas makes his living being harried and harassed. Usually a woman is the source of his misery ("Fatal Attraction," "Basic Instinct," "Disclosure"), but sometimes a man will do just as well. This time the source of Douglas' dismay is Patrick Koster (Sean Bean), a jewel thief who heisted a large ruby from a safe deposit box ten years ago only to have a member of his gang double-cross him and left the stone. Koster killed the traitor and went to prison. Now he's out, and the only person who can tell him where the stone is hidden is a mentally unstable young woman, Elisabeth Burrows (Brittany Murphy). Enter Douglas as Dr. Nathan Conrad, a shrink called in to treat Elizabeth. Koster needs to get a number from Elizabeth, so he kidnaps Nathan's daughter Jessie (Skye McCole Bartusiak) to motivate Nathan to wring the number from his patient before 5:00.
The plot of "Don't Say a Word" is extremely artificial even for a thriller. The first hour is a plodding set-up of the plot, and all the suspense in the film is centered around the mystery of the number: what does it signify? how can a number tell Koster where the ruby is hidden? When the solution is revealed, the lengths to which the crooks went to get the number seem unnecessary. Koster had all the information he needed to find the jewel except for this number that would reveal the exact location. However, the gang is extremely resourceful; they manage to set up high-tech surveillance in several locations, including the maximum security wing of the mental hospital. With all that Koster already knew, he probably could have found the number in government records without the additional liability of kidnapping a child.
For about five minutes, "Don't Say a Word" really cooks. During that five minutes, director Gary Fleder cuts back and forth between three events: Nathan breaking Elizabeth out of the asylum, the criminals discovering that Jessie has managed to send a message to her mother, and her mother (Famke Janssen) fends off a killer despite being bedridden with a broken leg. After that much suspense squeezed into a small space in the middle, the rest of the movie seems like an anti-climax.
Taken as a whole, "Don't Say a Word" seems very stale. It was likely sold as "'Ransom' meets 'Kiss the Girls'" (the latter film was also directed by Fleder). It's one of those movies where you leave the theater with the unsettling feeling that you've seen it before somewhere.
© 2002 Christian L. Pyle
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.
