"...I'll never tell"

Don't Say a Word (2001): 6/10

Poster (c) 20th Century Fox

Gary Fleder is the director to turn to if you want a generic thriller with a small twist. Kiss the Girls was a kidnapping movie, but one of the victims escaped. Imposter had the main character believed to be an alien. Runaway Jury was a typical courtroom drama with someone on the outside. And now Don’t Say a Word is a regular thriller about a child kidnapped. However, the one main “twist” is that to have the daughter released, the father (Michael Douglas) has to find a six-digit number from one of his patients (Brittany Murphy) before 5 o’clock that day. Betcha didn’t see that one coming.

There is really nothing in Don’t Say a Word that’s especially original. For the most part, it’s just a typical child-in-danger scenario where the father (who always has a prominent job) cracks and does whatever he can to save her (the child is always female). The turn in the movie was welcome, although the movie doesn’t really start until about 30 minutes into it, which went by quite quickly. The rest of the movie seems to drag on and on, but I digress. There is always one kidnapper who is a little kinder, and almost folds under pressure. The mother is always handicapped in the beginning but soon rises to the occasion. There are a whole lot more clichés I could go through, but I think I’ll stop.

I can understand how Don’t Say a Word would be Murphy’s breakout role, but it doesn’t really show how she could become today’s “it-girl” that she is now. This role isn’t one that teenagers could identify with. Come to think of it, I couldn’t identify with her. I couldn’t read her face; tell what her emotions were. For a role that required the audience to feel with her and feel what she was going through, it didn’t work. Douglas acted, well, as Michael Douglas. Nothing new.

As in all generic thrillers, there are some good, tense scenes (although it’s obvious what would happen), but nothing new. When, at the end, we find out what the numbers stand for, they throw it in our face and there’s even a line like, “I KNOW the number’s for a…”, when they never even mentioned it before. Lastly, I could have done without the multiple flashbacks. It would have been more effective without them. To wrap it all up, Don’t Say a Word is not a bad movie, it’s just generic.

Rated R for violence, including some gruesome images, and language.

Review Date: November 16, 2003