Its about time...

Imagine for a moment, you are a middle-aged man named Alex. You live a semi-normal existence in suburban America. You have two jobs. You run a small mail-order business out of your house, selling lawn ornaments, kitchen equipment and sexual aids, things like that. However, you also work for your father as a hired assassin. Would that make your ordinary suburban life that little bit more 'complex'?



Alex has the perfect picket-fence life, a nice house, an understanding wife and an intelligent six-year-old son called Sammy. Nevertheless, there's something missing - 'I don't know why I bother getting up in the mornings'. Deciding to see a therapist, Alex encounters Sarah in the waiting room, an eccentric twenty-three year old that has 'issues'. They exchange favourite colours. They share an instant connection. Alex can't get Sarah out of his mind. He drinks beers and smokes cigarettes while distantly looking out of his rainy window. Martha, his wife, asks him if he's having an affair. Troubled by nightmares of his childhood, he begins to question his murderous actions. Alex wants to quit the family business. His father, Michael won't allow it. Angry that he's spilling the beans about the family business, Michael sets him up to kill the therapist. Will Alex go through with the murder or will he begin to take responsibility for his own actions?



Panic is a strange, self-effacing and awkward black comedy staring the sweepingly fluid and quirky William H. Macy (Mike), the naturally seductive Neve Campell (Sarah), the curious Tracey Ullman (Martha), the meditative John Ritter (the therapist) and the versatile juggernaut that is Donald Sutherland (Michael). It's a crime against cinema that we Brit's have had to wait nine-years for Henry Bromell's Panic to be released on DVD.



The opening scene of Panic is full of melodic and minimalist shots of Mr. Macy walking through an empty office block. It creates a vacant atmosphere that lingers in your mind. Macy lights a cigarette against a clear blue background and fades into the unnatural distance. With his bluely green puppy-dog eyes, sorrowful features and tense walk, his character takes hold of our curiosity. Who is this person? Brian Tyler creates a dream-like aura with his music; long drawn out violin strings and fingers that float across piano keys. We become spellbound by the simplicity of it all.



The scenes between Alex and Sarah is what holds the plot together, they are sweet and heartfelt moments of magic between two versatile actors. Macy (who is in Fargo) and Campell (famous as the Scream queen) express tender feelings of innocent fondness. They become lost in their own little bubble. The standout scene between them is when Alex goes to Sarah's flat to discuss their 'situation'. Sarah takes off her top in a provocative way and intones, 'go ahead look'. Alex tells her that he cant cheat on Martha and looks around the flat with curious unhappy eyes. She slaps him in the face. He begins to walk down the stairs when the sound of smashed glass sends him back into the room to find Sarah with blood on her hand. They have wild passionate sex on the hard wooden floor.



The scenes with Macy and Sutherland are also excellent; they flourish with an intense undercurrent that probes the unsteady father/son relationship. Alex doesn't want be a killer anymore and has anxious flashbacks of his childhood. Looking through the profile photographs of the therapist he has to kill, we jump to a memory of his dad taking him into the countryside to shoot a squirrel. We see the young Alex aiming a gun into the distance. The parallel scene later in the movie between Sammy and his grandfather is chilling - 'please grandpa, don't make me shoot the squirrel'. Even though Panic is laced with philosophical themes, there's a great sense of black humour at its heart. The exchange of dialogue between Alex and Michael as they sit in a bar is side-splitting. Sutherland talks about the relationship with his wife, 'were all f***ing pussy-whipped […] women run the world, sneaky the way they do it, who decides what your gonna eat tonight? Who decides how much booze you should drink? Who decides what movie your gonna go see? It's a terrific script.



It's easy to make comparisons between a film like Panic and American Beauty, they share the same thematic tensions, but when you dig a little deeper into the narrative, Panic is a completely different beast. It doesn't share the awkward self-conscious pretensions of American Beauty, it's a down-to-earth 'mid-life crisis' movie with an edge. If you're not accustomed to a harmonious pace, it can be difficult to find Panic 'entertaining'. It's a quirky little film without all the wham, bam, thank you budget-man of modern Hollywood. It's a film with oodles of charismatic personality. It's about character psychology, the relationships we develop with people and all the big stuff we question in life. This is illustrated through Alex's son Sammy, he ponders philosophical quandaries that seem beyond the thought patterns of a six-year-old, 'Dad, what's infinity?', 'Dad, are you gonna die?', 'Dad, are you and mum gonna get a divorce?' Sammy, played by David Dorfman (who later appeared in the Ring remake and sequels) is a great little actor. The scenes between father and son are compassionate moments of magic that sparkle throughout.



Panic creates an awkward feeling for the audience, the characters grab our attention and they maintain it for 84-minutes. It has a good solid script, beautiful cinematography, nice editing and its well directed. What more can you ask for from a movie?

Extras: None