James Gary Fleder's movie based on an Andrew Klavan novel from 10 years before it begins with a basic kidnapping story, but throws in the fascinating twist that the leverage is being exerted on psychiatrist Dr Nathan Conrad (Michael Douglas), who needs to work swiftly with patient Elisabeth Burrows (Brittany Murphy) to get out of her key information needed by the kidnappers. There's much more to it than that, but that's an intriguing story, and it requires Conrad (done by Douglas with his usual aplomb) to work on the limits of professional ethics ... as well as at a speed not normally associated with therapy! In this he is a little bit accompanied by a hospital manager played well as usual by Oliver Platt.What adds much to this film is the ruthlessness of the chief bad guy played by Sean Bean, whose team also applies hi-tech methods that maybe stretch credibility a bit but are fascinating. There are also a number of interesting settings, and most of all Hart Island, which does indeed boast the largest taxpayer-funded cemetery in the world at Potter's Field (with more than a million interred there!)However, what seals it for me here are four strong female performances. Murphy plays Elisabeth very well indeed - attractive yet so sad and vulnerable and traumatised. Conrad ends up hugging her on several occasions (doubtless an absolute contravention of standards) - but the character is extremely huggable. But Conrad's care for his patient is paralleled by his concern for his own daughter, and that comes close to conflicting, yet ends up in the form of parallel concern that gains good presentation in a warm and thought-provoking way. Then there is (a very attractive) Famke Janssen (an actress we of course know much better now) who gets its just right as Conrad's wife - bedridden by a broken leg of all things, her every move monitored by the tormenter-bad guys, and so motivated by her desperate love for her daughter that she'll really stop at nothing! It's an understated yet meaningful, enjoyable playing of a very determined and gutsy heroine. Rather the same could be said about Jennifer Esposito as the detective. The Conrads are determined (wrongly of course) to leave the cops out of things, so we don't see quite enough of the lovely detective (in what indeed looks like a slightly tacked-on plot strand), but what we do see is fine work. And then of course there is Nathan's daughter (Skye McCole Bartusiak), who has maybe few lines but acquits herself very well and plausibly in a dificult role.This movie then goes way beyond "Michael Douglas vehicle", being very willing to share out the acting plaudits quite widely in the cast male and especially here female. More than that, "Don't Say a Word" is economical - it comes in at about 93 minutes and seems to do more with that time than many, many a film does with 2 hours plus. That's a tribute to the makers of a 17-year-old piece of work that is absolutely worth watching today.

Paul J. Nemecek Don't Say A Word is in many ways a run-of-the-mill thriller. Michael Douglas and Famke Jannsen play a middle-class urban couple with a cute young daughter and the perfect American life. Douglas plays Dr. Nathan Conrad, a respected psychiatrist. On the day before Thanksgiving their lives are turned upside down when their daughter is kidnapped. The kidnappers don't want money, as such; they want Dr. Conrad's services. If he wants to see his daughter again, he must convince a psychiatric patient to reveal a long-kept secret.Director Gary Fleder (Kiss the Girls) owes a few debts here. This film borrows plot devices from Ransom, Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much, The Negotiator, and What Lies Beneath. The biggest flaws of the film are its over-reliance on cliches and some grand implausibilities. The cliches are integrated well enough into they story line that they tend to work for the most part. The one exception has to do with a disappearing body. I saw it coming a mile away. Implausibility is not a fatal flaw in a film, but this one clearly pushes the limits with unanswered questions. One example that doesn't reveal too much will make the point. The villain has waited ten years to get this information, but gives Dr. Conrad a few hours. Sometimes implausible plot points are necessary to get where we want to go; this one seems to be a result of sheer laziness.In spite of these flaws, the film is not without redeeming value. The pacing of the film is nearly flawless, and the director does an excellent job with the editing and visual elements of the film. Performances are solid and occasionally inspired. Particularly noteworthy are the performances by the hero (Michael Douglas) and the villain (Sean Bean who played a similar type in Patriot Games). Skye McCole Bartesiak does an excellent job as the kidnapped daughter and Brittany Murphy is excellent as the psychiatric patient. This film was number one at the box office this past weekend and will probably continue to do well. It is not a great film; it might be a moderately good film. If audiences keep coming it will most likely be for the therapeutic value. Like most crime films and many Westerns, this film presents a model family whose lives are disrupted by a seemingly random act of violence. We sit on the edges of out seats and watch hopefully, as order is restored and good triumphs over evil. This is a message that touches our deepest longings for order and justice, and this is a message we long to hear, perhaps now more than ever.

Leofwine_draca A contrived and uninteresting thriller that reveals everything that's wrong with Hollywood. The letdown here is the script, a nonsensical piece of writing that sees various parties scrabbling after a secret code that can be used to unlock a priceless ruby. It's ludicrous in the extreme and never believable for a second.The late Brittany Murphy appears as the world's most unconvincing mental patient, apparently suffering the effects of witnessing something horrific as a kid. Embarrassing is a good word I'd describe to use her performance. Michael Douglas is the everyman hero and rather dull with it, while the likes of Famke Janssen are wasted in supporting roles. Sean Bean is the only strong link in the cast, and he's relegated the cliché British bad guy role.There's no action to divert from the poor writing, apart from a few silly moments in which Douglas somehow manages to best younger, fitter opponents in hand to hand combat. For a far better kidnapping thriller, I recommend RANSOM.

zardoz-13 Don't Say A Word" qualifies as utter hokum but good fun. This stylishly-lensed, white-knuckled suspense thriller asks us to put up with a plot so contrived that it literally defies credibility. Basically, a gang of relentless jewel thieves abduct Jessie (Skye McCole Bartusiask) the 8-year old daughter of an affluent Manhattan psychiatrist, Dr. Nathan Conrad (Michael Douglas of "Traffic"), and holds her for ransom. The gang doesn't demand money. Instead, these calculating, cold-blooded, ex-convicts want our resourceful hero to ferret out a secret mired in the mind of an apparently catatonic, 18-year old damsel-in-distress, Elisabeth Burrows (Brittany Murphy of "Summer Catch"), prone to bouts of extreme violence. Our antagonists need a six-digit number, so they can locate a ruby worth $10-million. Elisabeth's felonious father abetted bad guy Patrick Koster (Sean Bean of "GoldenEye") and his crew when they stole the gemstone ten years ago. During the getaway, Elisabeth's dad double-crossed them, stashed the ruby, and fled. When they caught up with him, he refused to divulge where he had the ruby, so they killed him, but were caught and imprisoned. Now, they are back on the streets again and after Elisabeth.Were this chain of events not improbable enough, remember these villains have just finished a ten-year stretch in New York's notorious Attica Prison, and they still want that damned stone! The premise of "Don't Say A Word" partially mimics the recent Martin Lawrence comedy "Blue Streak," except Lawrence emerged as the hero, whereas Sean Bean and his ruffians are indisputably the bad guys. Originally, N.Y. Transit authorities arrested Koster and company for knocking off Elisabeth's dad in a crowded subway station while she witnessed his murder. Vividly ingrained in her mind is the memory that nobody tried to help her dad. Now, the only remaining lead these desperate hoodlums have to the whereabouts of the ruby is Elisabeth herself. Cleverly, she has managed to hole up in a variety of mental facilities over the intervening decade and eluded them. How can somebody with no medical expertise whatsoever dupe experts and stay in at least 20 institutions? "Don't Say A Word" never satisfactorily resolves this question. Nevertheless, Dr. Conrad catches her faking right off the bat. Deciding to come clean, Elisabeth warbles a tune like a mythical Greek siren trying to lure a sailor to his death on a rocky seashore: "I'll never tell." She knows more is at stake than her implied mental instability and suspects Dr. Conrad knows about her secret, too.Incredibly, our heroic psychologist finds himself up against a wall with a nerve-racking, eight-hour deadline to pry the valuable secret out of a reluctant Elisabeth before the villains kill his daughter. The outlandish but adrenalin-laced Anthony Peckham & Patrick Smith Kelly screenplay borrows elements from the Bogart classic "The Maltese Falcon," the Martin Lawrence comedy "Blue Streak," and the graveyard scene in Sergio Leone's "The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly." Sadly, the writers don't do a seamless job of integrating different story lines, so a police investigation subplot appears added as an afterthought. Finally, our villains behave like larcenous Boy Scouts. They come up with every available audio and video surveillance device to make Big Brother salivate, and they install them wherever our heroes might conduct business. Like all encompassing evil, these fiends strive to be as omniscient as possible. They wire Dr. Conrad's luxurious apartment house and the grim mental institution where Elisabeth is held. The writers neglect to tell how these guys obtained their sophisticated equipment. Did they steal it? Or how they could gain access to an apartment complex with security guards? "Don't Say A Word" unfolds with a flashback set in 1991. Koster and his team of high-tech thieves break into a safe-deposit box at a posh New York bank and pocket a priceless ruby. At least, Patrick thought he had it, only to discover moments afterward that his slippery-fingered accomplice has pulled the old switcheroo on him. Eventually, they catch him in the subway, and Elisabeth's dad dies when they force him in front of an on-coming subway train. Later, after they get out of Attica, Koster and his cohorts track Elisabeth down in a mental asylum run by Dr. Louis Sachs (Oliver Platt of "Bicentennial Man"), one of Nathan's oldest and closest friends. Sachs accuses Nathan of selling out and moving up-town to earn the big bucks. Our wily villains strong-arm Sachs, and he browbeats the unsuspecting Nathan into accepting the poor girl's case pro bono on Thanksgiving Eve. Nathan's last minute favor for Louis ticks off his wife Aggie (Famke Janssen of "X-Men"); she is confined to a bed with her broken leg in a plaster cast. We learn Aggie broke her leg during an off-screen skiing accident. However, Aggie's infirmity doesn't prevent the agile Janssen from getting into trouble later on in the action. Aggie's no-holds-barred battle with one of Patrick's nastier henchmen is simply terrific! I'm not overly fond of kidnap capers involving small children. My chief complaint about "Don't Say A Word" is the little girl. First, we know nothing deadly can occur to her, because she looks far too cute and adorable. Second, you know her brave dad will save her, because "Don't Say A Word" is strictly a popcorn movie. Third, Hollywood doesn't make movies that show adults torturing children. As a result, this inherent lack of drama undercuts the suspense. Now, teenagers are an entirely different story. The villains can rough them up, but they aren't about to muss a little girl's hair. Only when the kidnap caper is a comedy along the lines of O'Henry's "The Ransom of Red Chief," where the child creates more chaos than the adults can endure, do I like them.Ultimately, "Don't Say A Word" doesn't surpass director Gary Fleder's audaciously subversive debut thriller "Things To Do In Denver When You're Dead" (1995). Altogether, what "Don't Say A Word" lacks in authenticity, Fleder more than makes up for with gripping, edge-of-the-seat anxiety.