User reviews

They say there's nothing new under the sun, and that's especially apt in sunny Hollywood. So it's tempting to ask, merely as a theoretical exercise, "can you make a movie that is essentially a model kit assembled from other movies, and still make it effective?" "Don't Say a Word" proves that the answer is "Yes." WHY you would want to set out to do such a thing is another question; you'll have to ask the producers about it.

In the movie, Michael Douglas plays an affluent, happily married psychologist who has to contend (as Michael Douglas does in every movie), with a seriously disturbed woman. The femme-looney in this outing is Elizabeth Burrows (Brittany Murphy), a 10-year, 20-institution veteran with enough contradictory diagnoses to sink a DSM textbook. He is called in to consult by a colleague (Oliver Platt) and then is bewildered as a shadowy band of Bad Guys snatch his daughter and demand that he work his famed empathy thing with poor Britt and get her to give him a ten-digit number that they need. Her dad, it seems, ripped them off during the heist of a precious red jewel, and they need the number to find it. Douglas figures out that while she has problems of her own, Elizabeth has been confounding her doctors by imitating various symptoms, in effect, staying institutionalized to hide from the evildoers. Me, I would have gone to Tahiti; to each his own.

The kidnap-flick tropes then come in fast and heavy: the Panicked Discovery, the Initial Phone Call, The List of Rules (no cops, yada yada), "No Deal Til I Talk to My Daughter", the Desperate Clock-Race Across Town, the Tough Female Detective trying to Figure It All Out, and more. We get a host of other familiar faces, too: the Bad Guys are a band of high-tech thieves (which are so common in movies, they must have a hell of a union), with black leather jackets, sleek laptops, and a guy whose job during the robbery is to stand in the middle of the bank with a stopwatch calling off the time, as though they were at the Olympic trials for the 100-meter Felony.

But all this is skillfully handled, with just enough tweaks to the familiar formulas to make it feel fresh. At one point, Douglas makes the kidnappers relocate to meet him, a nice twist on the usual "kidnappers run the bagman all over town" scene. And the bit with the mental patient, well, it beats can-we-raise-the-money-in-time? For his part, Michael Douglas does well, though he is a little too slick to portray besieged decent men. My hunch is that Harrison Ford was first choice to play this role. Famke Janssen is good as his wife. Though the script gives her little to do, she is really the one who makes us feel the panic and despair that attend the abduction of a child, and though it's a familiar movie scenario, it is still able to play on the nerves quite effectively. The little girl playing Douglas' daughter does well, too, cute but not cloying, smart but credible; there is an amusing scene where she attempts to make conversation with the hulking, tattooed murderer who is guarding her, eventually cajoling him into making peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches. And, carrying on the proud tradition started by Alyssa Milano in "Commando", does her level best to foil her captors.

The Bad Guys are a little disappointing. They are assigned quirks rather than characters (one never appears to have a name). As the head villain, Sean Bean makes what he can of his feral charisma, but he literally phones this performance in. I think the poor guy is doomed to spend the rest of his career playing Hibernian heavies in leather jackets. Their operation seems a little too well-orchestrated, especially since the movie supposedly take place less than three weeks after they've been sprung after doing a dime in Attica (where one guesses they studied electronic eavesdropping in between lifting weights). And while the movie doesn't say how much the priceless rock is worth, by my estimation, after splitting the proceeds and covering their overhead, surveillance equipment, and tattoos, the gang should have just enough left for a celebratory lunch at the IHOP.

The best performance is by Brittany Murphy as the twitchy, wary Elizabeth. With her weird hand gestures and tuneless singing, this character could have been really annoying. But Murphy makes her guileless and affecting. Watching her stare out her barred window at the tugboats in the river, your heart breaks just a little.

The story is not always credible, especially the parts involving Jennifer Esposito as the detective, who is really a sideshow anyway. We also see several New Yorkers who are surprisingly pliant when deprived of everything from cell phones to speedboats. And the parents adhere blindly to the "don't tell the cops" rule, even after it is laughably impractical to do so.

The thing that really makes the movie work is the setting and the way it is shot by director Gary Fleder, who made the underrated "Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead". Fleder puts us in claustophobic, oppressive places, from underground morgues to puke-green institution hallways with prison doors and disturbing graffiti, to the fog-shrouded darkness of Potter's Field, graveyard of the anonymous dead of New York City. Even Douglas' luxury apartment seems at tight quarters, and these places are filmed in such a way to make this close to a horror movie. The dark climax is formulaic, but give a neat twist in location. The number, incidentally, doesn't refer to an uplink code or satellite designation or encryption key or any of the usual millenial McGuffins of late. What it represents is something surprising, sad, and refreshingly old-fashioned. Which kind of goes for the rest of the movie as well.

Here's another interesting kidnap story. Sean Bean always plays a believable villain and Michael Douglas usually plays roles that keep the audience's attention....so the almost- two hours go by pretty quickly. The whole cast, actually, pretty good with no one person standing out.

The story loses points because the ending goes on too long and has the standard villain-holds-the-gun-and-doesn't shoot-too long cliché which drives critics, me included crazy. That, and a bit too many f-words in here by the female cop (Jennifer Esposito) which simply aren't necessary, and a few other holes all reduce this from a sure 9-star to an "8.....but don't misunderstand: it's worth a look.

Overall, I really liked this movie, which surprised me a little bit. The trailers I had seen for it had me thinking it was going to be kind of "cheesy" for lack of a better word, but this was actually very engrossing. It had an interesting story line, sustained suspense and for the most part was well acted.

I particularly liked Brittany Murphy as Elisabeth Burrows, the psychiatric inmate whose tortured mind holds the information that Dr. Conrad (Michael Douglas) needs to get in order to save his young daughter Jessie's (Skye McCole Bartusiak) life. Murphy seemed so "into" her character that it was almost spooky to watch her. She was extremely convincing. Douglas I thought also offered up a good performance, as did Sean Bean as Patrick, the head kidnapper. Young Miss Bartusiak was commendable but to me didn't seem to portray the range of emotions I would expect a young child to be feeling in Jesse's circumstances. She just seemed altogether too calm. The same could be said for Famke Janssen as Jessie's mother Aggie Conrad. I realize the character had a broken leg and apparently couldn't get out of bed, but again she just seemed to take the whole thing too calmly (and, when her own life was threatened she seemed able to move around well enough, broken leg or not!) As for Oliver Platt as Conrad's colleague Dr. Sachs? I find that, depending on the movie, I either like Platt or don't (no middle ground) and I didn't care for him in this movie.

Overall, though, the movie was quite good as a vehicle for Douglas. I'd rate it as a 7/10.

A sad, unfortunate fact about this movie is that the 2 young female stars Brittany Murphy and Skye McCole Bartusiak (who plays the daughter of Michael Douglas) both died in a young age.

Anyway, this is a conventional thriller, nothing extraordinary. Although the critics hated it, it manage to become a commercial success doubling its budget in box office.

The plot is flimsy and fragile: The daughter of a psychiatrist is kidnapped, and her kidnappers want from his to "extract" a secret from a young woman who is imprisoned in a mental institution, that could lead them to a valuable object they tried to stole some years ago.

It starts slow but soon some action picks-up but it becomes exaggerated and coincidental maybe even absurd.

Michael Douglas does what he cans to save the movie but doesn't seem enough.

Overall: If you can catch it on TV watch it, but never think of paying a single dollar/euro/whatever for it.

My 11 year old nephew said it was the scariest movie he's ever seen. I can't quite agree with that, but the level of intensity and the fast moving plot really impressed me, even if it all didn't quite add up in the end. I can't remember a movie that I've seen in awhile that just MOVED along so well and had so little downtime. Given the 'deadline', it felt like it was in real-time for the second half of the movie.

I was a little bothered by Michael Douglas having a wife the age of Famke. I love her and its not a knock against her but there was no need to keep up Douglas' legacy of attracting wives under 35 for him. Gwyneth Paltrow, Demi Moore and Daryl Hannah have all been love interests for him - why? Because its the male fantasy? Reeks of insecurity to me. Plus I don't see Dame Judi Dench romancing Leo, do I? Meryl Streep and James Franco? Anyway, this is not important, just slightly annoying.

There are questions I'd like to ask the screenwriter because there are inconsistencies along the way and about one or two things that are totally out of the question.

However, as I mentioned, the movie moves along so fast that you might not have time to dwell on anything for too long. I don't think it was speeded up to cover anything up either.

The best part is the acting, especially by Brittany Murphy. I didn't enjoy her in "Clueless" but really loved her in "Girl Interupted" and thought she was the best thing about that movie. Here she gives it all, in a part that could have been laughed off the screen if it weren't played exactly right. Jennifer Esposito is also very believable as a cop, Sean Bean as a kidnapper and, as mentioned, Famke as a trophy wife.

Worth watching, for sure. 7/10.

I hadn't seen this and at a loss of what to stream one evening I put it on. It's a really good little thriller with a great star turn from Michael Douglas and a very on form, and top villain, Sean Bean.

There's some really dodgy plot points. The moment Michael Douglas returns from checking his front door is one, watch it and you'll see what I mean. A very odd response and scene. That said i really enjoyed the old school thriller-ness of it and was swept along.

The sad bit is that Brittany. Murphy puts on a stunning performance here, vulnerable yet strong and totally on point throughout her plotline which holds the movie together. She died far too young and this movie shows us a glimpse of what she would have surely built upon as her career progressed. Also, in a double tragedy for this film Skye McCole Bratusiak has also passed away, her performance here is charm without ever being too much at points a touch of a young Jodie Foster about her. Both huge losses and both of their performances alone make this movie worth watching and a little sad to reflect on as the end credits roll by.

Don't Say a Word takes a great concept and, at least for a pretty good amount of the movie, runs with it with style and suspense. The concept- a psychiatrist (Michael Douglas, good in this type of role) meets a (semi) catatonic girl, but then find himself in a dangerous situation when a kidnapper (Sean Bean) takes his daughter right out of his house and demands he get an important number locked inside the girl's memory. Sometimes contains scenes that could've been left for the DVD deleted scenes (Oliver Platt, while he's good, serves no real perpose in the core of the story). But when it gets exciting, it can hold your attention well enough. Murphy, who plays the girl, is off and on believable and over-believable. B+

Ever see a movie for the first time yet still have to ask yourself, "Wait, have I seen this before?" That's pretty much what we're dealing with here. Even if you haven't seen this movie yet, you have.

With "Don't Say a Word," it's like whoever made it was so enthralled by the high-concept, give-it-to-me-in-ten-words-or-less premise, they figured they didn't have to try real hard with anything else. Sure, it's competent. But with its intriguing premise, it should have advanced way past that.

Oh well. It doesn't. Michael Douglas -- who in this film is wearing more make-up than the "women" I see on Santa Monica Blvd. at midnight -- puts in the kind of performance that, if this were an office job, wouldn't get him fired but wouldn't get him promoted. It's more than a drive-by paycheck pick-up, but Douglas has been around long enough to size up a script and know when he should bother trying and when he shouldn't. He goes with choice B here. And it doesn't really matter.

(As a side note, when is the last time Michael Douglas had an on-screen wife within 20 years of his own age? I mean, come on. Do you really think that in real life the man could...oh, wait, never mind.)

As for everything else, Brittany Murphy scores some points for playing a schizophrenic disaster of a girl who you'd still like to nail. Oliver Platt, who is getting fatter faster than Aretha Franklin, shows up for some day player-level acting work. Famke Jannsen looks sexy in a cast, but isn't given much to do. And as for the cop, played by Jennifer Esposito, she is so irrelevant to the plot that she's practically in a different movie altogether.

The plot? If you can't figure out how this movie ends, you're trying even less than whoever wrote it.

Having said all that, it will still kill two free hours just fine. Little ventured, nothing gained.

I really don't understand the bad reviews and low rating! This movie is totally underrated! It's a really good thriller with interesting psychological aspect to it. Michael Douglas, Sean Bean and Brittany Murphy are all Excellent! Maybe it's not too innovative (it's a typical "we kidnapped someone you love and now you do as we say") but so what?! It's interesting and suspenseful and 20 years later it's still working! If you never watched it and you like good thrillers, give it a chance!

This thriller certainly is a good enough one to watch and it also is a very professionally made one but it however offers very little new or refreshing enough material. It makes "Don't Say a Word" nothing more than a standard thriller, with some good actors in it.

The cast is really the saving grace of the movie. It still provides the movie with some good moments and characters and also give the movie an extra sense of professionalism involved. Sean Bean is a great as the main villain and delivers an absolute fine performance. Michael Douglas is also great as the leading man, mainly because he doesn't play him as an 'hero' but an ordinary everyday person instead. Douglas is always fine in these sort of roles. Some other excellent actors play some smaller parts in the movie. Actors such as; Brittany Murphy, Oliver Platt, Victor Argo and last but not least Famke Janssen. They all help to make the movie look better and more interesting than it in fact really is. Most of the characters are however pretty flat. Why does Famke Janssen even play the wife? It's a role basically every actress could had played. This movie just didn't seem like a very challenging or original project to get involved with. And I also have the feeling that the movie would had been better of without the Jennifer Esposito. Just think about it, was she really necessary for the movie and its story? Her character is not engaging enough, since it's not she we need to care about or cheer for but the Michael Douglas character instead, who is the main lead of the movie. Her character is distracting from the movie its main story.

The movie is certainly style-full and it does have its moments. But in the end it just really falls flat as a really good or original thriller. All of the moments in the movie are just too predictable and the movie doesn't offer any real surprises. Therefor this movie just isn't anymore than a well made but standard formulaic thriller.

It's a movie that does serve its purpose and the movie certainly is watchable as a simple standard thriller. Fans of the genre will probably still be the most entertained by it but even they have to conclude that this movie is far from being one of the best thrillers released in recent years. It's the sort of movie that is only quite good enough to watch it just maybe once. Don't expect too much of this and you might end up liking it good enough.

Nothing too remarkable, just a well made, simple thriller, with some great actors in it.

6/10

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This movie provides in the thrills department. It stars Michael Douglas in the lead role (and he IS well cast) as a psychiatrist whose daughter is kidnapped by a bunch of men who want him to extract a six-digit number from a mentally disturbed young lady. Both parties then proceed to match wits en route to a great climax towards the end of the movie.

This was based on the book by the same name. The book was quite good, too. I rank this movie as your typical thriller with good twists.

*** out of ****

A thriller with some decent acting and an OK story. I'll bet the book is a lot better; the movie has to compress all the therapy sessions b/n Michael Douglas and Brittany Murphy's characters, which makes them feel rushed.

Visually, there isn't much that pops off the screen. I did like the female cop character, and the daughter Jessie was a very smooth actor for a kid.

Really, the thing that kept it all from taking off, IMO, is that everything always seemed to work out too perfectly: the father knows the name of the dolls (that never happens :-); the patient never panics or runs away while being transported out of a hospital for the first time in 10 years; the cop locates the bad guys on Hart Island just in time, etc...She gets blasted thru with multiple gunshots, yet has a smile for Douglas at the ambulance...

Perhaps the question that sticks in my mind most is: Why did the good guys show so much mercy to the bad guys? It cost them every time. I kept yelling at my screen "Kill him!", but they never would...then the bad guy would rise again.

***LUKEWARM RECOMMENDATION***

Dr Nathan Conrad, a shrink - Michael Douglas - is getting ready to have Thanksgiving dinner with his wife and preschool daughter Jessie. Jessie loves to hide from Daddy and have him hunt for her. Unbelievably, Nathan is called by a fellow Psych doctor to examine a young adult female, Elisabeth - Brittany Murphy, who has been in mental wards ten years, on the holiday Eve. Strangely, Dr Conrad does get the gal to say a few words. The next morning, Jessie is missing and the Conrads get a call. Bad dudes have kidnapped Jessie and they won't kill her if Dr Nathan can get Elisabeth to remember a number tied to.a crime she witnessed. Oh, my. Does this young woman with PTSD really have a digit to save Jessie buried in her head ? This is a fairly exciting film with a good cast. In addition to Douglas and Murphy, Sean Bean has the role of evil lead kidnapper. There is a ticking clock scenario that leaves one very intrigued. But, in truth, the premise is very far fetched and shouldn't be examined too closely. Just go along for the ride.

The all star cast delivers, Michael Douglas, Brittany Murphy, Sean Bean, etc. all put in really solid performances.

The story is fresh and is pretty well thought out, Douglas is a psychiatrist whose daughter has been kidnapped - but the perpetrators don't want money, they want him to get a six digit code from the troubled mind of a mental teenager (Brittany Murphy) or they kill his only child.

There's plenty of tension and drama in the race to get the number and save his child, with some decent action thrown in.

Don't say a word really should be a great film based on the positives listed above, but it seems the whole equals less than the sum of its parts and it just comes out as average.

6/10

Quite a decent thriller, with Michael Douglas, Sean Bean and Brittany Murphy. Thankfully, Sean keeps his english accent, as some other english actors try their hand at being american, which is fine, but not when you're so used to them.

That being said, it starts at the beginnng. Many thrillers have to build up, which at times you lose the thrill of the plot. Then, you're thrown into the present day, and start to understand the characters.

It has a few twists, but nothing that really jumped out. If you're after a decent thriller, have a go :)

Well-trussed New York psychiatrist Michael Douglas (as Nathan Conrad) finds his world unraveling, after cute 8-year-old daughter Skye McCole Bartusiak (as Jessie) is kidnapped by psychotic Sean Bean (as Patrick Koster). For ransom, the crooked Mr. Bean wants Mr. Douglas to pry a six-digit number from the disturbed mind of squirrelly patient Brittany Murphy (as Elisabeth Burrows). Douglas wife Famke Jansen (as Aggie) worries from home, due to a broken leg. Somehow, Jennifer Esposito (as Sandra Cassidy) gets herself involved. The film's title advises "Don't Say a Word," when actually, there isn't much to tell. Ms. Murphy is most memorable.

***** Don't Say a Word (9/24/01) Gary Fleder ~ Michael Douglas, Brittany Murphy, Sean Bean, Famke Janssen

This is a very suspenseful film with uniformly good performances. The film moves quickly, isn't boring and really sustains one's interest. And hey, an apartment at the Ansonia! Reminiscent of another great thriller, Rosemary's Baby.

This movie, starring Michael Douglas as Nathan Conrad, a prominent psychiatrist as a man who must retrieve a number from a patient in order to save his adorable kidnapped daughter, probably should win some sort of award for Dumbest Movie Title. It ranks up there with Don't Look in the Basement, Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead, and Don't Tell Her It's Me (all real titles). The title's not terribly descriptive, but it fits in with the plotline itself, which is pretty faceless.

Douglas must be used to these roles by now, the domineering, I'm-in-charge, alpha male. He's played a powerful lawyer (Disclosure), a powerful financial genius (The Game), a powerful drug czar (Traffic), and the powerful leader of the free world (The American President). He basically sleepwalks through this movie, phoning in a pretty lethargic performance that adds no nuance to the character.

In fact, the movie's a lot like Mercury Rising, which starred Bruce Willis as a renegade FBI agent protecting an autistic boy who had broken a supersecret government code. Will Nathan get the code from his traumatized patient in time to save his girl's life? With this type of movie, that question's no more than pure rhetoric. If you're at Point A and can see where the end of the movie (Point B) is, then the only way the movie can distinguish itself is to provide a gimmick. That gimmick is that the code that these evil bad guys (led by a superficially menacing Sean Bean) need is locked in the screwed-up mind of Elisabeth Burrows (newcomer Brittney Murphy), who isn't autistic but is so traumatized by the murder of her father years ago that she hardly speaks to anyone and reacts violently when approached. On top of all of this, Nathan's stock pretty wife Jessie (Skye McCole Bartusiak, looking like Sela Ward) is stuck in their apartment with a broken leg. (And you know, when a character has something slightly off-kilter about them, that quirkiness will play a role in the movie, somehow. It's like when a guy has a lisp - and then it turns out that the bad guy has a lisp, too. These things are hardly ever put in for no reason, you see.)

Once we've established that the Bad Guys have the daughter and that the wife is stuck in bed with a cast, then we know Nathan must solve it on his own. To make sure, the Bad Guys tell him not to go to the cops. They don't need to say this, though; the Hero never goes to the cops. Too dangerous. Who'd believe him? And so on. So our stalwart, prominent psychiatrist goes it alone, for only he may save the day. Snore.

Maybe it's Douglas, and maybe it's the shallowness of the supporting cast, but in so many of his movies the other actors seem to melt away. Sometimes it's because he's off the wall, a ham who doesn't chew the scenary so much as swallow it hole and regurgitate it onto your TV. (It's the Michael Douglas show! No wait; that was a different Mike Douglas.)

The wonderful thing about characters with mental issues is that you can make those problems do whatever the script requires, with no real nod to logic or cohesion. These characters can be manipulated to fit any plot stupidities, including the dopey actions of the main characters. Don't Say a Word falls easily into this mold. And any movie that leans heavily on one gimmick isn't much of a movie, unless the characterizations and performances are well above par for the genre. They're not.

This is drivel best relegated to the bargain bins at Blockbuster. From start to finish, there's not one true note to be found. Suspend your disbelief? You need to suspend it and then kick the chair out from underneath it. This movie doesn't approach credibility; it's a mere tourist in the land of reality.

I didn't watch this movie when it first came out over 20 years ago because of the negative reviews. However, I decided to watch it last night, and I was surprised how good it is.

The cast is excellent: Brittany Murphy gives a stellar performance as a girl who witnessed her father's murder ten years before. Sean Bean is one of the best British actors, and plays a hero or a villain equally well. Michael Douglas and Famke Janssen also perform very well as always.

There is plenty of suspense throughout, and the movie is neither too slow paced, nor too fast paced. There is sufficient character development to make the characters interesting.

There is nothing wrong with the acting, screenwriting nor direction. The harsh reviews make no sense.

Highly overdone thriller with a slew of sub-plots that confuse instead of enhance the story that in the end seems like a big wast of time, unless you see it for it's unintentional comedic values.

A bank robbery ten years ago in Brooklyn NY to steal an expensive ruby from a safe deposit box goes astray when one of the crooks ends up stealing it from his fellow robbers. A short time later strolling with his eight year old daughter, Elisabeth (Brittany Murphy) on the subway he's chased beaten and thrown to the tracks, by the crooks whom he double-crossed, where he's then run over by a train and killed before the eyes of his terrified daughter. Just before Elisabeth's dad is buried in Potter's Field his daughter puts her doll, Miska, in the Coffin with him not knowing that he hid the sought after ruby in it.

Ten years later the crooks who killed her father, who were arrested on the scene and sentenced, are released from jail. The first thing that they do is go looking for Elisabeth to get the number of the grave that here father is buried in to get a hold of the ruby. Now how does Michael Douglas, Dr. Nathan Conrad, come in to all this? It seems that Dr. Conrad is a top hot shot psychiatrist who's associated with the mental hospital where Elisabeth is a patient. This is after she recognized one of the crooks who killed her father and went bananas and slashed him to death.

The crooks want Dr. Conrad to find out from Elisabeth the number of her fathers grave by him getting her to talk to him. To make sure that Dr. Conrad cooperates they kidnap his eight year old daughter Jessie, Skye McCole, so that he gets the massage. The movie "Don't say a word" goes on with at least a dozen more sub-plots that would take a good size book to explain them all. The final scene in Potter's Field goes on for what seems to be an eternity.Under normal conditions you should have concern and sympathy for Dr. Conrad his wife and daughter, as well as young Elisabeth, but you just can't. The movie is so contrived that the characters didn't seem real so why even bother to care about them.

The most absurd part in the movie, with so many absurd parts, was the hard as nails, all pampered and polished, detective Sandra Cassidy, Jennifer Esposito. Cassidy in the end of the film takes on the whole batch of hardened criminals single-handedly without even bothering to call or wait for back-up. Even "Dirty Harry" Callahan wouldn't do that and ends up wiping out almost all of them! even after taking a bullet in her gut! Cassidy is so though that she seems ready to get back on duty the next morning! And to think that there are some people who say that women can't cut it as policemen.