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"Don't Say a Word" is
a suspenseful story of a cat and mouse game that a
psychiatrist is playing with a man who kidnapped and is
threatening to kill his daughter. The rules of the
game-- Dr. Conrad (Douglas) has until 5:00 PM to get a 6 digit
number out of a very disturbed girl (Elisabeth Burrows, played
by Murphy) that he is treating. If he doesn't obtain the
number, his daughter will be killed and possibly himself and
his seven-foot tall giant of a wife (Famke Janssen is young
and pretty but, seriously, way too tall for Douglas or any
normal human man) will join in that fate.
So,
the plot sounds interesting-- which it is-- but in order for
this story to take place, the audience has to accept many
factors. 1) Dr. Conrad isn't even really treating
Elisabeth, his psychiatrist buddy just paged him one day and
asked if he's take a look at her. Dr. Conrad only met
this girl once-- he basically knows nothing about her.
2) Elisabeth is supposed to be an enigma. She's
been through 20 different hospitals and doctors and nobody can
figure out what's wrong with her -- that is, of course, until
Dr. Conrad meets her, spends 1 minute with her, and suddenly
knows what's wrong with her. He must be a genius!
3) A Jennifer Lopez knock-off of a though-girl cop
(Jennifer Esposito) starts sniffing around a murder
investigation which conveniently happens to tie into the whole
story at the end of the movie-- I'm sure you can guess what
ultimately happens. 4) The main reason that the
female detective gets involved is because for some reason the
kidnappers killed someone and didn't follow their own rules--
for what reason? Probably so the writer could tie in the
detective and wrap up the film into a nice, neat, little
package.
Besides all that, the acting was good for the most part and
the movie was entertaining and suspenseful. Liz and I
both saw this movie together and we agree that "Don't Say
a Word" was a good thriller, but it was nothing special.
There were too many devices and characters used to move the
plot along; it was so formulistic. I can almost imagine
the writer sitting at his/her computer/desk-- plotting out the
entire course of the story, getting stuck at dead ends and
then adding a new element to help push through to the final
destination. The final product is nice and neat, but a
little too neat and a little too obvious.
-- Liz
& Patsy
( 2 out of 4 pops )
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Other Junkie's
opinions.....
Matt ( 2 1/2 out
of 4 )
Now...this is not a bad movie. It's entertaining (to a degree),
but altogether forgettable. It has some good touches, but it's
pretty much your typical, run-of-the-mill Hollywood thriller:
Dad (played well by Douglas) becomes a superhero and drives through
the Thanksgiving Day Parade in pursuit of his daughter, Mom is a
paraplegic and ends up breaking out of her cast and beating villains
with her crutches, etc. I do have to commend Brittany Murphy
(who some may recognize from "Clueless" and "Girl
Interrupted") for her convincing portrayal as a
schizophrenic girl who holds a big secret. Hopefully,
she'll become a household name pretty soon. There are no really
taut moments of suspense, and though I consider the movie watchable,
"Don't Say A Word" doesn't deserve a very good word of
mouth.
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