There’s something weirdly comforting about thrillers that emerged from the 90s and early 2000s. Starry casts, glossy production values and various directors turning in admirable hack work would, more often than not, result in movies that might not have set the world alight, but certainly would keep your bum glued to a seat for a little under two hours. A perfect example of this strangely reassuring genre of thriller was Gary Fleder’s Don’t Say A Word, which plays to type so closely, it could be a compososite of virtually everything that came before or after it.
There’s some mystery thats been stumbled across that builds into kidnapping; Michael Douglas is playing an upstanding type; Sean Bean is on villain duty and Famke Janssen dutifully wrings her hands from the sidelines. Even if you haven’t seen this movie yet, doesn’t that incredibly familiar description make you feel like you actually have? Such is Don’t Say A Word’s greatest gift and it’s greatest curse – it’s so familiar you’ll swear you’ve seen it when you haven’t, but if you have seen it, you’ve probably forgotten everything about it…
In 1991, we witness Patrick Koster and his crew pull a daring daylight robbery in order to nab a ruby worth a cool $10 million. However, despite having the brass balls to pull such a crime while aura farming with masks off once they hear sirens approaching, Foster ultimately ends up empty handed when he’s double crossed by two of his associates who make off with the stone.
Zipping ahead to the present day (aka. 2001) we find prominent child psychiatrist Dr. Nathan R. Conrad gearing up for Thanksgiving with his wife, Aggie, and his daughter Jessie. However, his plans are temporarily put on hold when he gets a call from a former colleague asking for aid. It seems that Dr. Louis Sachs has a trouble patient at the state sanitorium and he needs Nathan’s expertise to get through to her. The girl is Elizabeth Burrows and according to Louis, she’s been passed from hospital to hospital over the past decade only for every doctor she’s seen to diagnose her with something completely different. However, after attempting to break through Elizabeth’s delusions, both real and faked, Nathan suddenly finds that he’s put himself and his family in a world of shit.
Resurfacing after a decade, Koster is still looking for that ruby and somehow, Elizabeth has knowledge about how to find it. Kidnapping Jessie and giving Nathan a painfully tight time limit to perform years of therapy, Koster tells the psychiatrist he has to prise the information out of the girl – but how do you suddenly gain the trust of someone who has survived by simply regarding everyone with obsessive suspicion?
No one was expecting a 2001, Michael Douglas thriller helmed by the director of Kiss The Girls and Things To Do In Denver When You’re Dead, to change the world – and it promptly doesn’t – but that doesn’t mean that it’s lacking in all the basic elements that ensure it’s a remarkably easy diversion. For a start, it has one of those basic plots that provides hefty fuel for the sort of airport novel fodder that kept 90s/00s thriller cinema ticking for ages (yes, of course it’s based on a novel), even though it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Essentially, it’s one of those stories where someone gifted in a particular profession now has to put their skills to the test and work within some sort of ludicrous time frame lest his family pay a terrible price – you know, like America’s Next Top Model. In say, Ransom, Mel Gibson’s businessman had to put his abilities of out-thinking opponents to ensure the return of his stolen spawn, so here we find that Michael Douglas’ child shrink has to psychiatrist the hell out of a scenario before his 8 year-old daughter pays the ultimate penalty. It isn’t exactly rocket science, but it’s fertile enough ground to keep us watching.
It also helps that it comes with a cast that are all extraordinarily comfortable in this kind of sandbox. Douglas could do this shit whilst in a freakin’ coma – although I have to applaud the actor for his character’s restraint as this is one of the few thrillers that Douglas has appeared in where cheating on his wife hasn’t been included as some sort of humanising character flaw. Speaking of Douglas’ martial situation, at first you’re fairly worried that after playing Xenia Onatopp in Goldeneye and Jean Grey in X-Men, Famke Janssen really is going to spend the entire film bed bound with a broken leg while everybody else gets to have fun – however, the film manages to include her in the action (and a surprisingly vicious fight to the death) thanks to some illogical, but still fairly effective twists. Most fun of all is that we have villain de joir, Sean Bean pulling British born baddie duty as one of those antagonists who keep claiming that they’re going to kill everybody and yet illogically only use up their bullets on their own, underachieving underlings when they have the hero at their mercy. Needless to say, I don’t think it’s some sort of devastating, earth-shattering spoiler to reveal that our Sean doesn’t make it to the end credits as he’s been legendarily survival shy throughout his career.
However, while there’s an argument to me made that everyone here is hardly stretching themselves (including director Fleder), this is almost overturned singlehandedly by the late, great Brittany Murphy who turns in a memorable performance as the troubled Elizabeth by delivering every single acting tic you’ve ever seen – and a few you haven’t. In a single film, the actress manages to channel every bit of crazy acting that exists. When she isn’t rocking backwards and forwards or being utterly catatonic, she’s cowering in corners, delivering her lines in a sing song voice or exploding into a violent rage – but while you could accuse her of pulling a “crazy character behaviour greatest hits”, the dedication she brings to her role breathes some much needed life into all of her scenes and makes the film infinitely more interesting.
While hardly emerging as a glittering example of the genre, it is worth noting that, while films like Don’t Say A Word used to be a dime a dozen in cinemas back in the day, medium budgeted, star led thrillers now seem to exclusively be the domain of streaming sites, which still baffle me greatly. No, the film refuses to stay lodged in your brain twenty minutes after you just finished watching it, but that doesn’t mean you don’t get caught up in the white knuckle melodrama (and Murphy’s performance) as it’s happening. Just don’t think too much about Douglas’ early advice to an oversexed teen about stealing panties to whack off with being totally normal…
As solid as it is forgettable, Don’t Say A Word nevertheless is bolstered by a dependable lead performance by Douglas and Bean’s particular brand of northern villainy. However, it’s Murphy who goes above and beyond to give Gary Fleder’s by-the-numbers nail biter that necessary extra juice. What would the movie have been without her? Don’t ask me, I’ll never tell…
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Where to watch Don’t Say A Word: