David Fincher's latest work, Panic room is a film everyone should see. The man who brought us Seven and Fight Club has cobbled together a new suspense thriller that manages to straddle the line between aesthetic and textual appeal. This is the sort of work that allows American History students to write lengthy papers on place and space while missing the visceral thrill of the movie itself.

Yes, the movie does take place almost entirely within the confines of a large house in Manhatten. Yes, the main character (played by Jodie Foster) is just getting over a divoce/separation. Yes, her young daughter is a diabetic. Yes, both Jared Leto and Forest Whitaker are dim-witted criminals who aren't jailbird material. There are so many angles to each of the multi-dimensional characters that it is refreshing to see Dwight Yoakam play a single sided baddie in comparison to everyone else. Rather than dissecting each camera angle or statement however to search for greatness, is it easier to simply look at why the movie works so well. First, within a few scenes the audience is completely under the spell of Fincher, rooting for individual characters in an interactive manner I've yet to see during most modern movies. Perhaps the audience I was in was simply more expressive than most, but the old cliche of telling the horror victim don't open that door! was in full effect. Each moment at which the god-like camera revealed a truth only half-perceived by the other characters, the audience would grow restless, muttering softly or preparing for a surprise. Ironic, then, that inside the panic room itself eight cameras record the action that Fincher provides through cgi zooms and pans.

In the end, it is this quality, the simple human predilection for mistakes, that drives the movie forward. At each stage an opening exists for hunter or huntee to end the madness, yet small minds breed stagnant solutions, and what seems like a good idea may result in a catastophe. It is this continuous fatality, this inexorable march towards desruction, that drives the picture on and engrosses the audience. Much like a chess endgame, one can see the eventual outcome (or so one thinks) long before it is reached, yet we are powerless to do more than push pawns, hoping some opening will reveal itself. Thankfully, the game is scripted by a master.