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Yar, you be here: Don't Say a Word > Customer Reviews Don't Say a Word Customer Reviews (1 - 3 of 36 Reviews)Good Thriller.....
I found this show was a good thriller. Brittany Murphy does a great job playing a "disturbed" girl and Michael Douglas does a good job playing her psychiatrist. Murphy's character pretends to be psychotic in order to remain in mental institutions because there is someone out there that wants something from her..... something that she has in her memory. She finds safety remaining in mental institutions. There is alot of good suspense in this movie like when Douglas' character's daughter is kidnapped being held hostage in return for the secret Murphy has in her memory..... a number. Douglas must then do what it takes to save his daughter and his patient. Good acting, good suspense and overall a movie that keeps you interested. Good movie to rent if you have not seen it before. Worth seeing. Don't Say a Word (2001)
Director: Gary Fleder Cast: Michael Douglas, Sean Bean, Brittany Murphy, Skye McCole Bartusiask, Guy Torry, Jennifer Esposito, Shawn Doyle, Victor Argo, Conrad Goode, Paul Schulze, Lance Reddick, Famke Janssen. Running Time: 113 minutes Rated R for violence, including some gruesome images, and language. Every fall, Hollywood trots out their latest thrillers, attempting to cash in on the college crowd who wants to bring their dates to a dark theater and take advantage of the squeamishness of the content on the screen; there is a hidden connection in the biting of nails and the changing of the leaves, yet without fail every year there are enough thrillers to keep manicurists in business. Nothing sums up the quintessential fall thriller quite like "Don't Say A Word", a suspense romp as routine as they come. Diverting enough to fool you into a good time, "Don't Say A Word" makes one wish for a leap in time to the holiday Oscar contenders already. Dr. Nathan Conrad (Michael Douglas) is a successful psychiatrist with a beautiful wife (Famke Janssen) and a cherubic daughter. On Thanksgiving morning, a group of bad guys, lead by Patrick Koster (Sean Bean), break into Nathan's apartment and kidnap his daughter. What the men want is a jewel they lost 10 years earlier in a botched robbery that is being held in a secret place by Elisabeth Burrows (Brittany Murphy), a mentally unstable young girl rotting away in a hospital. Since Nathan seems to be the only medical professional she trusts, Patrick uses him as a pawn to recover the jewel. Nathan is soon at the mercy of the kidnappers, but as he gets deeper into Elisabeth's mind, he realizes the young girl could be helped after all. It's perfect casting to place Michael Douglas in the lead role, as no one could play yuppie paranoia quite like he can. Douglas has perfected this type of performance into an art form with his work in "Fatal Attraction" and "A Perfect Murder; Douglas is a little more subdued than normal in this film, as his aging seems to be wearing away his ability to play the hot, rich stud who gets in over his head. The film does contain many moments of pure distressed Douglas (his forte), with his hair glistening, teeth clenched and his eyes scanning the room, etc. Douglas, at least in the first act of the film, makes an attempt to carry the picture with his expected bag of tricks. Soon enough, director Gary Fleder places too much narrative nonsense on Douglas's shoulders, and the actor eventually just gives up and lets the genre's conventions take him to the safety of the end credits. Director Gary Fleder is no stranger to the fall thriller game, having directed both "Kiss The Girls" and the rollicking "Things To Do In Denver When You're Dead." Not really an imaginative director, Fleder nevertheless can be counted on to get the job done. With "Don't Say A Word," Fleder isn't working with a particularly good script, so he falls back on what has worked for him before. This plan of attack from Fleder leaves the picture stale and overtly familiar. The film is not interested in adding new elements to the plot to keep things at least appearing fresh. The end result making "Don't Say A Word" more boring than exciting. The thriller, which is set in New York City, uses the city and apartment locations well, creating a nice sense of claustrophobia. It is when the action suddenly leaves the confines of the city and moves to a cemetery in a nearby island that the picture loses quite a bit of tension and interest. Moving to an obviously-a-soundstage cemetery ruins the fun of seeing the character freak out in their narrow apartments and office spaces. The film must end with a clichéd showdown, which is the reason for the move to a different location, but Fleder makes a big mistake taking the story away from the grip of the big bad city. The one element that Fleder does get right is the casting of actress Brittany Murphy. A powderkeg of emotions, Murphy is the perfect choice to play the deranged Elisabeth. Murphy is a grand talent (where is her Emmy for her voice work as Luanne Platter on "King Of The Hill"?), and the only actress in Hollywood that truly achieves success as both a tormented patient and a cute, little princess ("Just Married", "Uptown Girls"). Unpredictable and bristling with untapped passions, Murphy makes a vivid impression in "Don't Say A Word." You've seen this type of film before, and just because it's the time of year when apples taste the best doesn't make this barely alive thriller any more enjoyable. For fans of the genre, "Don't Say A Word" is another solid installment in the Michael Douglas versus New York crime saga. Just don't expect any surprises. far-fetched, and often laughable, but entertaining anyway
Michael Douglas is a terrific actor who tends to unfairly get a bad rap, and he gives it his best shot here. Douglas plays a psychiatrist named Nathan Conrad. Conrad's daughter Jessie (Sky McCole Bartusiak) is taken by a group of kidnappers lead by Patrick Koster (Sean Bean). To meet Koster's request, Conrad must somehow pry a 6 digit number out of a mental patient named Elisabeth (Brittany Murphy). The key to a great thriller is its ability to really pull the viewer into its world and keep them captivated; "Don't Say A Word" comes up way short in this regard. The movie takes itself super-seriously, and yet, there are lots of little details/ plot twists that are so far-fetched, they're eyeroll inducing. In other words, you'll be saying to yourself "give me a break" time and time again over the course of this movie. For one thing, the Brittany Murphy character is portrayed early on as an impenetrable, deeply disturbed patient who will "never tell" the Douglas character what he needs to know, but as the movie goes along, she alters her moods as a way of moving the story along--convenient, isn't it--and for someone who's undoubtedly on some serious medication, this is hard to buy into. "Don't Say A Word", as the saying goes, does have its moments, and it will keep you entertained throughout, largely thanks to a typically excellent and intense performance from Douglas. Sean Bean's performance as the villian is actually pretty toothless, but Murphy does a convincing job of portraying a paranoid, frightened, and deeply disturbed mental patient, and Sky McCole Bartusiak is also commendable as the 8-year-old Jessie. "Don't Say A Word" isn't a movie to go far out of your way for, but if you see the DVD real cheap in a clearance bin, it's worth picking up, especially for big Douglas fans. The bottom line is that it's good, but not great.
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