Don't Say a Word
Don't Say a Word
When the daughter of a psychiatrist is kidnapped, he is horrified to discover that the abductors' demand is that he break through to a young woman, suffering from PTSD, who knows a secret six digit code number.
匚卂尺ㄥ reviewedFebruary 12, 2025
This is a great film. Totally engaging and really terrifying. When it came out in 2001, shortly after 9/11, the critics panned it--unfairly, I think. Just possibly they were preoccupied with something else. Actually, there are a lot of plot holes and unexplained details. There is also a level of surveillance that seemed a stretch in the era of flip phones, but is easily imaginable now. Nothing here about how the criminals managed to set it up so quickly. But that's not the focus of the film. The main issue here is how a psychiatrist and his family are pulled into crime plot to which they are completely unconnected at great risk. To recover his kidnapped daughter he needs to get a mentally disturbed girl to tell him a six digit number. Michael Douglas does a great job as the psychiatrist, and the rest of the cast is excellent as well. He is able to diagnose the patient and gain her trust impossibly quickly. The trick is to manage things so that the gang doesn't kill everyone off. A dedicated police detective is on the case, and her pursuit is a parallel story. What makes the film terrifying is the seeming randomness of the victims of horrible violence. If it could happen to them, it could happen to anyone. This is called a psychological thriller, but there isn't much here about the psychology of the criminals--except for a few hints at the beginning. Don't expect a complete resolution, but the film is thoroughly entertaining.