Don't Say A Word

Michael Douglas is threatening to make psychiatry his second job. Luckily, he does a great job at playing them. This time out he plays Dr. Nathan Conrad, a New York psychiatrist who has recently started working uptown. But his buddy back at the psych ward, Dr. Louis Sachs (Oliver Platt in another neurotic performance that he needs to get out of to show everyone that he can really act), get him back for one more job. Elizabeth (Brittany Murphy, looking more and more like a non-anorexic version of Sarah Michele Gellar everyday) has been moved from hospital to hospital for the last ten years. Funny thing is that she has been diagnosed differently every time. Now she’s under Sachs’s care and he doesn’t know what to do with her.

Problem is that it’s the night before Thanksgiving and all through the Conrad house there’s a wife, Aggie (Famke Janssen) with a broken leg and a little girl, Jessie (Skye McCole Bartusiak from Cider House Rules and The Patriot), both of whom are excepting daddy home to bring the turkey.

What none of them know is that Elizabeth is about to string them up in her world of fear. You see, Patrick (Sean Bean from GoldenEye, who is in full-on baddie mode) has been chasing her around for the last ten years. She has a number that he wants that will somehow help him find a jewel that he stole ten years ago. It cost her dad his life and now it may cost Jessie hers. And Patrick and his band know every move that Conrad makes because of their techno-toys. No cops. No phone. No telling anyone. Period.

Meanwhile, Detective Sandra Cassidy (the ultra-hot Jennifer Esposito) is trying to figure out who killed a girl and dumped her into the river. She’s slowly being pointed to the trail of Patrick.

This is a pretty tight little thriller. The story isn’t too inventive or taxing and there are a few leaps of faith that must be taken on the part of the audience (Why would an intelligent cop like Cassidy not know that Potter’s Field was on Hart Island?), but there’s enough tension to keep us from thinking about that for too long.

There were also a lot of clichés. Cassidy is your typical hard-boiled female cop who yells at guys who say anything about the way she looks (although he was a little crass about it) and is probably a lesbian. (Listen to how she talks to “baby” on the phone. You know it to be true.) Patrick is a little over the top and hate-able in every way. There’s a character who starts to get attached to Jessie. Sachs is, of course, a walking cliché. And even Jessie is a bit of a cliché. She’s cute and all when she does things that she could only learn from her dad (trying to get her captor to talk to her so that she is a person to him and not just a victim), but it’s a little over-used by now.

But none of those things mattered while I was watching the movie. For those two hours the movie was great. I especially liked the editing (picture and sound). There were some New Wave moments and some sound effects that almost didn’t fit the picture (a plastic rod coming out of the inside of a cast does NOT sound like a metal knife coming out of a scabbard), but they totally did. Very cool.

Most of the performances were also very good. Mr. Douglas was his usual standout self and Famke was about as good as always. But the real performance to watch here is, of course, the mental patient. This is the kind of role that Oscar loves because it’s an actor who doesn’t usually get noticed and she is doing a great job of being an extreme. They don’t like normal people. This is why someone like Albert Brooks (a great, normal comedic actor) will never win an Oscar, but someone like Brad Pitt, who loves playing extremes (and is very good at it), will probably be nominated again at some point. They hate normality, although that’s harder to play.

All that aside, Brittany was very good as the schizophrenic who may just be a very good mimic. I think she is at the beginning of a great career, but then I’ve always kind of watched her knowing that she could be really good. (But what the hell is she doing in Summer Catch? Bad move, Brit.)

So if you go see this, don’t go expecting a great thriller or anything. It’s kind of a pulp movie, but it may be a step above the rest. Not something that you’re going to think about for weeks after seeing it, but it is definitely entertaining.

And I applaud the filmmakers’ decision to NOT edit out a couple of buildings that are on everyone’s minds lately. Of course they probably didn’t because they didn’t think anyone would notice them. They were pretty dark shots.