The Panic Room Review
by "Robin Clifford" (rclifford AT teloquent DOT com)January 21st, 2001
"Panic"
Alex (William H. Macy) needs to see a shrink. He's facing a mid-life crisis, is unhappy with his marriage and worried about his son. He also wants to leave the family business. Alex is a hit man with a conscience and wants out in "Panic."
When Alex first goes to see Dr. Josh Parks (John Ritter) he meets Sarah (Neve Campbell), a pretty, severely neurotic young woman. They take an immediate liking to each other and a tentative romance begins to blossom. The reason Alex is seeing the doc in the first place is because of his deep-seated feelings of guilt over his troubled marriage and deadly career. When he meets Sarah, his problems are compounded, not improved, and Alex continues an inexorable downward spiral.
William H. Macy is one of my favorite character actors and there are few times he misses in a performance. In "Panic" he portrays the angst-ridden Alex as a truly troubled man who doesn't want to make waves for his family's murder-for-hire business but wants, desperately, out. His work problems affect his marriage, too, as he grows distant from his loyal wife, Martha (Tracey Ullman). His only solace is the time he spends with son, gaining strength from the little boy's unconditional love for his dad.
Macy's character study of Alex overshadows the rest of the players markedly. Donald Sutherland comes across not as a high powered, mob-connected businessman whose commodity is murder but as a childish creep who has no humanity - he even forces his grandson to gun down a squirrel. Tracey Ullman has the thankless wife role, while John Ritter is merely an object for the hit-man story to rest upon. Neve Campbell, as Sarah, has nowhere to take her troubled character. For the most part, she has to go one-on-one with Alex or her shrink. She doesn't get the opportunity to break out of her shell, acting only as a conscience for her would be lover. Only Barbara Bain (remember her in the "Mission: Impossible" TV series?) fares well as Alex's mother. She gets the chance to put a ruthless spin on her outwardly kindly wife and mother, Deidre, who, in fact, brooks no discontent from her son when he asks to get out of the killing business.
Newcomer writer/director Henry Bromwell joins the pantheon of mobster-shrink flicks that began with TV's "The Sopranos" and the DeNiro/Crystal movie "Analyze This." It's an interesting idea that could have used a more experienced hand at the helm. The premise of a mob member seeing a shrink about his guilt for his crimes should get some screen mileage, but it falls flat in "Panic." I give it a C-.
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