"Don't Say A Word" is an entertaining "race against time" thriller with plenty of action, some good acting and a few neat twists. Visually, it's easy on the eye and its plot involves bank robbery, murder and kidnapping as well as an ordinary man who has to do something extraordinary in order to save the life of his child. The stakes are high and the tension grows steadily until things become even more desperate as time starts to run out. Interestingly, the story has a few different strands which eventually converge and the pace of the action is lively throughout.
A gang breaks into a bank and steals just one high value item (a gem worth $10 million) but after making a clean getaway, it's soon discovered that one of the criminals has double-crossed his associates and has absconded with the jewel. The other gang members then hunt him down and kill him in a subway station.
Ten years later, after having served their time in prison, the gang kidnap the 8-year-old daughter of Dr Nathan Conrad (Michael Douglas) who's a highly respected New York psychiatrist. Conrad is a specialist in dealing with teenage patients and the kidnappers demand that he elicit from one of his patients a 6-digit number which is buried somewhere in her troubled mind. Jessie Conrad (Skye McCole Bartusiak) is abducted early in the morning of Thanksgiving Day and Dr Conrad is given until 5.00pm to get the necessary information. If he fails Jessie will be killed.
Elisabeth Burrows (Brittany Murphy) is a particularly challenging patient who has been institutionalised for many years and has displayed a confusing variety of symptoms. Conrad eventually gains her cooperation when he tells her that his daughter has been kidnapped and through his efforts, it's gradually discovered that her trauma originated in an incident, which happened ten years earlier when she saw her father being killed by the gang who'd committed the bank robbery. The significance of the 6-digit number then becomes clear, as it's a vital piece of information which could enable the gang to locate the stolen gem.
Sean Bean gives a strong performance as the vicious gang leader and powerfully projects just how cold, clever and threatening his character really is. The way that he uses surveillance equipment to watch Dr Conrad's family before and after Jessie's abduction is also very scary as it quickly becomes clear that the gang can see everything that the family do at all times and Conrad's wife Aggie (Famke Janssen) is particularly vulnerable as she's bedridden with a broken leg.
Michael Douglas is typically polished as an ordinary professional man who loves his family and then becomes desperate and fearful when his daughter's life is threatened and he's given an absurdly tight deadline within which to meet the criminals' unreasonable demands.
Britanny Murphy is fantastic as the mentally disturbed teenager with a history of having violent outbursts and patterns of behaviour that have puzzled the professionals for some years. The power and intensity that she brings to the part is surprisingly strong and believable and makes her performance one that's definitely not to be missed.
A gang breaks into a bank and steals just one high value item (a gem worth $10 million) but after making a clean getaway, it's soon discovered that one of the criminals has double-crossed his associates and has absconded with the jewel. The other gang members then hunt him down and kill him in a subway station.
Ten years later, after having served their time in prison, the gang kidnap the 8-year-old daughter of Dr Nathan Conrad (Michael Douglas) who's a highly respected New York psychiatrist. Conrad is a specialist in dealing with teenage patients and the kidnappers demand that he elicit from one of his patients a 6-digit number which is buried somewhere in her troubled mind. Jessie Conrad (Skye McCole Bartusiak) is abducted early in the morning of Thanksgiving Day and Dr Conrad is given until 5.00pm to get the necessary information. If he fails Jessie will be killed.
Elisabeth Burrows (Brittany Murphy) is a particularly challenging patient who has been institutionalised for many years and has displayed a confusing variety of symptoms. Conrad eventually gains her cooperation when he tells her that his daughter has been kidnapped and through his efforts, it's gradually discovered that her trauma originated in an incident, which happened ten years earlier when she saw her father being killed by the gang who'd committed the bank robbery. The significance of the 6-digit number then becomes clear, as it's a vital piece of information which could enable the gang to locate the stolen gem.
Sean Bean gives a strong performance as the vicious gang leader and powerfully projects just how cold, clever and threatening his character really is. The way that he uses surveillance equipment to watch Dr Conrad's family before and after Jessie's abduction is also very scary as it quickly becomes clear that the gang can see everything that the family do at all times and Conrad's wife Aggie (Famke Janssen) is particularly vulnerable as she's bedridden with a broken leg.
Michael Douglas is typically polished as an ordinary professional man who loves his family and then becomes desperate and fearful when his daughter's life is threatened and he's given an absurdly tight deadline within which to meet the criminals' unreasonable demands.
Britanny Murphy is fantastic as the mentally disturbed teenager with a history of having violent outbursts and patterns of behaviour that have puzzled the professionals for some years. The power and intensity that she brings to the part is surprisingly strong and believable and makes her performance one that's definitely not to be missed.