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Don't Say a Word sounds a lot better on paper than it ends up being on the big screen. It's a psychological thriller based on a novel - a good start - and features performances from the usually reliable Michael Douglas and stars-in-the-making Brittany Murphy and Sean Bean, the latter of whom will appear in the upcoming Lord of the Rings trilogy.
But Word is merely a predictable, by-the-numbers action flick with a little psychobabble thrown in to the mix. In fact, the only shocking thing about the film is the fact it was one of three set to open on September 28 that feature prominent shots of the World Trade Center (the others are Serendipity, which will remove the potentially offending images; and Sidewalks of New York, which also stars Murphy and has been pushed back to a November release).
Word begins ten years ago with a group of five expert thieves knocking off a Manhattan bank to get their mitts on a $10 million ruby (for some reason, they pass up various other riches). The gang, led by Patrick Koster (Bean, Ronin), leaves in two cars and, as they get away, realize they've been the victims of the old switcheroo. Before we learn more, Word brings us into the present day, where Dr. Nathan Conrad (Douglas, One Night at McCool's) is heading home from his upscale psychiatry practice to spend the Thanksgiving holiday with his wife Aggie (Famke Janssen, X-Men) and eight-year-old daughter Jessie (Skye McCole Bartusiak, The Patriot).
Before he reaches his luxurious Central Park West home, however, Nathan receives a call from Dr. Jerald Sachs (Oliver Platt, Ready to Rumble), an old colleague who needs his help with a new patient at a dingy nuthouse on the other side of town. Figuring it will only postpone his arrival home by an hour or two, Nathan meets Jerald and his patient, a spooky 18-year-old named Elisabeth Burrows (Murphy, Summer Catch) who has been in 20 different institutions and had just as many different diagnoses. It seems that Elisabeth witnessed her father being hit by a subway when she was eight and hasn't been the same sense.
Long story short, Nathan wakes up the next morning to find his daughter has been kidnapped, and her captors say he has until 5:00 that evening to pry a mysterious six-digit code from Elisabeth's crazy noggin. Hmmm.let me get my abacus. Elisabeth is 18 and her dad was killed when she was eight. That's ten years ago. I wonder if her dad had something to do with the ruby robbery? It doesn't take a rocket scientist to stay at least one step ahead of Word at any point. It becomes clear fairly early on that Nathan will both save his daughter and cure Elisabeth like some kind of psychiatric superhero. The only unanswered question is whether Word's final shot will show Elisabeth eating Thanksgiving dinner with Nathan's family or not.
The best aspects of Word come from the most unexpected places. Nathan's wife Aggie has a broken leg and is in traction, confined to her bed for the entire film while she's being watched by the bad guys' hidden video cameras (it's like a reverse Rear Window). And the badly underdeveloped relationship between little Jessie and her kidnapper has a lot of potential, as the girl seems to grow on the gruff, tattooed gangster (it's like a reverse Stockholm Syndrome). And Amir Mokri's (Coyote Ugly) cinematography is, at times, quite captivating, especially in the gritty flashback scenes and prologue that make New York City look like Sarajevo.
Instead, director Gary Fleder (Kiss the Girls) and screenwriters Patrick Smith Kelly (A Perfect Murder) and Anthony Peckham, adapting from Andrew Klavan's novel, insist on including a completely worthless subplot involving a homicide detective (Jennifer Esposito, Dracula 2000) who may be the toughest female law enforcement agent since J.Lo in Out of Sight. Still, her character does nothing but take up time, making Word about 20 minutes longer than it needs to be.
1:52 - R for violence, including some gruesome images, and language
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