reviewed by: Charity Bishop

           

Psychological thrillers never fail to engage the viewer into a fast-paced world in which peril is the bottom line. Hollywood has turned out their fair share of them, from moneymakers like Panic Room and The Net to Ransom and Shaymalen's recent trio of 'supernatural mindbenders.' Don't Say a Word fits in among them like a glove. It has an excellent pace, a truly unique premise, memorable characters, and a horrifying final showdown between good and evil. As a moneymaking seat-grabber, it pushes all the right buttons and doesn't fail to captivate us from the opening credits. Too bad it also has is a profane mouth -- f-words fly like German air bombs in casual combat, relinquishing this heart-pounder to the 'see only edited on TV' version.

A gray van sits down the street from the bank, parked with four people inside. One of them is complaining about the local football team. Another is idly smoking a cigarette. The driver and his front seat companion have their eyes fixed on the bank across the street. Finally, the signal! The foursome bolt out in ski masks, hold up everyone inside and break into the vault, ransacking through bonds, jewelry, and family treasures in a numbered box until a winking little gem is tucked into a pocket. Narrowly escaping the police, they take off in opposite directions. The ringleader opens the little pouch to finger the ruby. But it's not there... Fast forward ten years. Nathan Conrad (Michael Douglas) is one of the top-paid psychologists in New York. With a gorgeous high-rise apartment, offices in the upscale part of town and a beautiful wife and daughter, he seems to have it all together. But his life is about to fall apart. Beeped to the emergency ward of the local psych hospital on the eve before Thanksgiving, a fellow friend and colleague hands him the file of Elisabeth (Brittany Murphy), a seriously disturbed eighteen year old who has been in and out of mental hospitals since the age of nine. She attacked an orderly with a razor and nearly cut him to death, resulting in her placement in the hospital ward.

Warily agreeing to take the case pro bono, Nathan suspects that Elisabeth is far more intelligent than anyone could imagine. She's a world-class copycat, mimicking the other symptoms of mental patients. In the eighteen times she's been pulled in off the street or institutionalized, she's been given eighteen different diagnosis. There is something mentally off with her, as she proves in a singsong voice, chanting, 'You want it too, don't you? But I'll never tell! ... I'll never tell!' Disturbed but largely unconcerned, Nathan returns home to his fun-loving and artistic eight year old Jessie and wife Aggie (Famke Janssen), who is bedridden with a broken leg. The next morning, happily fixing his wife breakfast in the kitchen, Nathan makes a horrifying discovery: the chain on their deadlock has been cut. Jessie is missing. A phone call clarifies that she's been kidnapped. No cops. No friends. No calls out. They don't want money. What they want is a six-digit number inside Elisabeth's head.

He has less than twenty-four hours to break through her resolve and learn what it is that she'll 'never tell' in order to get his daughter back alive. In the meantime the clock is ticking and downtown Detective Cassidy is investigating an inexplicable death on the waterfront. I know something of psychology. I even originally intended to major in it at college, so I have a bird's eye view of how certain disorders pan out and even what causes them. I want to tell you that theory wise, this film is very sound. The character of Elizabeth is tragically realistic, a mental patient suffering from childhood trauma who has learned to adapt the symptoms of other patients in order to refrain from being diagnosed properly. Certain names, places, and words trigger her emotional violence and cause her to turn uncontrollably dangerous. The problem Nathan faces is that in less than twelve hours' time he has to get that number from inside her demented mind. Right off we fear Elisabeth and yet are drawn inexplicably to her. Her nervous little irritations (a foot tapping, fingers waving to some unknown strand of music, even the dead look in her eyes) are all typical of mentally imbalanced individuals. How much of it is she faking, we wonder... and to that, we never get whole answers.

The acting is very sound. Brittany Murphey has become known worldwide through her role as Nathan's patient. She even admits to the press with a giggle that people are always asking her to repeat 'I'll never tell!' in that eerie, chilling voice. I'd never seen Michael Douglas before and he proves a very worthwhile and likable presence on screen. The real delight here is Skye McCole as Jessie. Many of you will recognize her as Susan from The Patriot. She's a wonderful little actress; I would just like to see her in some family-friendly roles in the future, and not straight R-rated cinematic debuts. The pace of the film is quite good and has several unexpected twists, but language and violence becomes a problem. Around eighteen f-words pepper the dialogue, flung in like a sailor throws around common profanity, used both in anger and general conversation. This did bother me for good reason -- language is sadly easy to pick up. It's also highly offensive since otherwise the actual violence isn't that gruesome.

The rest of the language is made up of some minor profanity, three uses of GD, and two abuses of Jesus' name. Sensuality is limited. The opening intro to Nathan has him counseling a young man who stole a pair of girl's underwear from the locker room at school. Nathan and his wife kiss as he sensually runs a sponge across her leg. Some mild innuendo intrudes. Elisabeth, trying to get Nathan in trouble, runs her hand up inside her shirt suggestively and asks if he'd like to touch. We briefly see a woman's nude body on an autopsy table (no visible details). Violence is something of a problem. In the final scenes, several men are shot and killed with blood spraying on impact. A man is buried under an avalanche of dirt. A woman is attacked by a man and forced to defend herself. She hits him several times across the face with a wooden object, then stabs him with a long steel rod. Several bodies are seen both in the morgue and as plot twists. An old woman's slightly bloodied form is found in a bedroom. Gory pictures are briefly seen of the boy Elisabeth attacked with a razor, and another victim who was burned with a cigarette before having his neck snapped. Several struggles emerge in which characters are under threat or duress.  Elizabeth tries to strangle Nathan at one point. Several graves are dug up, unearthing shrunken bodies.

An intriguing thriller meant for more mature viewers but not worth renting unless you like hearing hard profanity and visiting the morgue.