September 28, 2001 | Alfred Hitchcock once coined the term “refrigerator logic” – or maybe “ice-box logic,” I don’t remember precisely – to describe a type of after-the-fact nit-picking common among moviegoers.
According to Hitchcock, you might really enjoy a movie, maybe even get swept away by its fanciful storytelling, and leave the theater thinking you had a swell time. You continue to feel the same way when you get home, get out of your clothes and get ready for bed. Just before you turn out the lights, however, you decide to have a snack or a glass of milk or whatever, so you head to the kitchen. And that’s where, just as you’re opening the refrigerator, you’re stricken with second thoughts about the evening’s entertainment.
You’re suddenly aware of an inconsistency of character, or a gaping hole in narrative logic, or an unanswered question that you didn’t think to ask while you were watching the movie. You slap yourself on the forehead and blurt: “Wait a second! How did he know where to go?” Or, “How could they have done that?” Or, most damningly: “That doesn’t make any sense at all!”
So consider this fair warning: Don’t Say a Word is not a movie that can withstand the unblinking scrutiny of refrigerator logic. In fact, you may start picking at the loose threads of the contrived plot during the closing credits. But never mind: While the movie is in motion, you likely will be too engrossed to contemplate any complaints. Be prepared to spend the better part of two hours balanced precariously on the edge of your seat. And don’t be surprised if you catch yourself nibbling on a fingernail or two.
Don’t Say a Word is a slickly commercial and thoroughly gripping thriller distinguished by its breathless, breakneck pace and cold, cunning proficiency. And like most movies of its kind, it presents a knotty problem for any critic who wants to evaluate it. Specifically, how much should be given away in a plot synopsis? Or, even more specifically, how much more than the too much that already has been given away in the coming attractions trailer?
Let’s stick to the basic need-to-know stuff. Michael Douglas is the hero of the piece, and he’s at his seriously intense best as Dr. Nathan Conrad, a fabulously successful New York psychiatrist who specializes in treating troubled adolescents. Nathan has an immense Upper West Side apartment, a beautiful young wife (Famke Janssen), a button-cute eight-year-old daughter (Skye McCole Bartusiak) – and the sort of luxuriously comfortable lifestyle enjoyed only by movie characters who are destined to plunge into mortal peril. Which is why our worst expectations are raised when, on the night before Thanksgiving, Nathan reluctantly agrees to help an old friend and colleague with a challenging diagnosis.
Dr. Louis Sachs (Oliver Platt) doesn’t know what to make of Elisabeth (Brittany Murphy), a seemingly catatonic young woman who inexplicably – and quite violently – attacked a mental hospital orderly. Nathan is enough of a genius in his field to figure out right away that Elisabeth isn’t catatonic all, that she likely has been diagnosed by doctors who couldn’t spot her talent for mimicry. (“She’s faking it?” Sachs marvels. “She belongs in the malingerer’s hall of fame.”) But there’s just so much even a genius can do in a single evening. So Nathan takes his leave, promising to return real soon, and goes home to his wife and daughter.
Bad news: The next morning, Nathan finds his little girl has been kidnapped. Worse news: Nathan gets a phone call from the kidnapper, a supercilious Brit sadist named Koster (Sean Bean), who demands that the psychiatrist continue his interrogation of Elisabeth. Koster wants Nathan to dig deep into the young woman’s shattered psyche, to find a six-digit number that has something to do with the hiding place of a stolen ruby. (We see Koster and a few other hard cases steal the precious stone in a tense, ten-years-earlier prologue.) Trouble is, Elisabeth refuses to say much of anything to anyone. And even when she does talk, it’s usually to tauntingly promise: “I’ll never tell.” But Koster insists that Nathan use any means necessary to unlock the secret hidden in her brain.
And, oh, by the way, if Koster doesn’t get that six-digit number by 5 p.m., Nathan will never see his little girl alive again.
Why 5 p.m.? Truth to tell, the filmmakers would prefer that you not ask that question. They would also prefer that you not ask how the kidnappers manage to install surveillance equipment in Nathan’s apartment – and in the mental hospital where Elisabeth is held – without anyone noticing. And they really, really hope you don’t notice that at least one major character is much too obviously not what he seems. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, thank you very much.
Don’t misunderstand: Don’t Say a Word isn’t sloppy in its plotting. Quite the contrary: The contrivances are designed with rigorous precision, so that even seemingly extraneous details prove to be significant. The action unfolds on Thanksgiving Day primarily so Nathan will have to endure a frantic delay while the Macy’s Parade blocks his Land Rover. (And why does he drive a Land Rover instead of, say, a Ford Escort? Because, silly, a Land Rover is much better suited to plowing through fences.) Meanwhile, back at the apartment, Aggie, Nathan’s wife, is bedridden with a broken leg, conveniently immobilizing her for most of the movie. At one point, she uses a long, pointed instrument to scratch beneath the plaster cast on her injured appendage. I don’t have to tell you what she does what that long, pointed instrument when a bad guy appears, do I?
Murphy makes the most of a showy role, and wisely underplays in a few key scenes that might have tempted lesser actors toward flamboyant excess. Bean is a suitably nasty baddie and Jansen is a suitably distressed damsel, but Platt, usually a reliable actor, is unsuitably obvious. Jennifer Esposito wanders in and out of the plot as an inquisitive cop, and she does what she can to make the character credible.
Working from a script adapted by Anthony Peckham and Patrick Smith Kelly from a prize-winning mystery novel by Andrew Klavan (True Crime), director Gary Fleder (Kiss the Girls) employs some clever visual stratagems to differentiate between the appealing warmth of the Conrad family home and the greenish-blue chilliness of the big, bad world outside. Better still, Fleder keeps his movie moving faster than the speed of thought. Don’t Say a Word may not be entirely logical, but it is shamelessly entertaining.
