I haven't seen a complete episode of Gilligan's Island in 20 years
 but  remember how Gilligan would always screw up their impending rescue?
 The Professor would painfully construct a coconut satellite dish to contact NASA
 and NASA would agree to rescue them the next day, but Gilligan would trip and
 knock over the coconut dish and disrupt the once-in-a-lifetime signal, right?

 In "Panic Room," it's ten times more forced than that.

 Panic Room
   a film review by BartCop   (multiple spoilers)

 I really, really like Jodie Foster.
 I really, really wanted to like this movie.
 This movie was two hours of non-stop, extreme aggravated frustration

 As soon as I noticed the writers' incredible propensity for horseshit, I started counting.
 I counted 29 times when Jodie Foster's character intentionally made the wrong move
 on behalf of the bumbling evildoers that would enable the scriptwriters to create another
 nobody-can-be-that-stupid impossible sitution from which to extricate themselves .

 The only way to hold this incredibly weak story together was to have Jodie Foster,
 the star, the producer, one of the most powerful women in the history of Hollwood
 make the most idiotic descisons that place her and her daughter's safety in further jeopardy
 ...and she agreed to star in this bizzaro-written movie?

 29 different times she could have gotten away or bettered her position.
 I counted on my fingers.
 Each of the 29 different times  Jodie Foster chose to flub the moment.

 You can't possibly make the wrong choice 29 different times in a row.
 You just can't.

 In the movie, she has home invaders.

 #29
 Jodie is very, very, very rich, but her inept alarm company give her
 less service than Governor Bush gave the National Guard in 1972?

 At BartCop Manor, if anything happens at all - loss of power, loss of phone line,
 any damn thing at all happens, my alarm starts squeeling like Ward Connelly
 after finding out a black woman got admitted to Southern Cal.

 I'm sure the writers would say,
"One evildoer worked for the alarm company, so that's how he got in."

 No, that doesn't work.
 When I got my alarm installed, I learned how to change the code.
 NOBODY has that code but Lorena and myself.
 NOBODY gets in my house without a screaming alarm.

 #28
 The panic room has a separate, dedicated phone line, but, of course, the scriptwriters had Jodie "forget"
 to hook up the damn phone. Jodie, how stupid, careless and thoughtless can one woman be?

 #27
 She calls the ex-hubby (because 911 put her on hold) and, knowing that she's racing the clock until the
 bad guys cut the phone line, she starts with "Good evening, I know it's late and I'm sorry to call
 at such an hour, and yes, I know what time it is, yadda, yadda, yadda, but do you think I
 might please be able to speak with my ex-husband if you don't mind, for a moment, please?

 If I was her, I would've said, "Our daughter's been shot, call every cop in the city."
 That takes four seconds and it gets the job done.
 But nooooooooooo, she wrestles with the new trophy wife for an endless five minutes.
 Secret: The new trophy wife's voice was Nicole Kidman.

Why does Jodie Foster want to play the part of the idiot helpless woman?
The kid from Home Alone was a Rhodes scholar compared to Jodie.
What would be wrong with her playing a SMART woman at a time of extreme panic?

Women can't be smart?
Women don't deserve that?
There were 26 other examples.

#26
Jodie reaches for the cell phones to call the cops.
Instead of grabbing the damn cell phone, she pushes it 5 inches farther away.
The second time she reaches for it, she pushes it 5 inches farther away.

Jesus Christ, lady, don't you love your kid at all?
Do you think if we gave you 100 grabs at your damn cell phone,
you might be able to pick the son of a bitch up one time and call the police?

#25
After about forty grabs at the cell phone, she finally gains control of her fingers
and runs back into the all-steel room to make her cell call to the cops.
Guess what? Cell phones don't work in slid steel rooms, Jodie!

This went on forever and ever, and remember, I WANTED this movie to be good.

#24
Thru some wacko twist in the script, her husband finally shows up and the evildoers
kick the living crap out of him. His face looks like The Beyonne Bleeder after going
fifteen rounds with Muhammed Ali. The bad guys really beat him up, over & over.
They beat him up so bad, they broke his arms.  Then, by some handjob plot twist,
Jodie gets hold of the evildoer's only gun, and what does she do with it?
She gives it to her mostly-dead husband - the guy with the broken arms.

THAT way, when the burglars come around the corner, he can pitifully fire all his bullets
into the floor while the audience laughs!   Perfect plan, Jodie!
Steveie Wonder would've been a better choice than a guy who can't hold a gun.

I counted on my fingers - twenty-nine times Jodie Foster did the EXACT OPPOSITE
of what any rational mother would ever do to protect her children.
Swear to Christ, it pains me to admit this, but Governor Bush isn't this stupid.

#23
The daughter, of course, is a diabetic.
She's going to die inside the hour without some sugar.
Is there any sugar in the millionaire's house?
OF COURSE NOT!

You can't have a movie with a diabetic AND sugar in the house.
And it's only your daughter's life.
Why bother to have some sugar around the house?

If that was me and Lorena, and sugar could save our lives, I'd place pounds of
The South's Finest Chocolate every five feet at BartCop Manor so it would be
impossible for me to fall without being within arm's reach of some life-saving sugar.
(I like that idea, tho...SF chocolate every five feet :)

This movie was so bad, we stayed afterwards to watch the credits roll in their entirety
to see if Michael Douglas had a hand in producing it because the last movie I saw with
this many serious, gaping plot holes was The Game.

#22
Towards the end, Jodie sneaks up behind the most evil evildoer and smacks him
in the side of the head with a full-size sledge hammer. It knocks him over the rail
and down the steps to the floor below, so Jodie assumes they're safe.

Do they run to safety?

Hell, no.
Why should they run for safety?

It makes much more sense to debrief the daughter so Jodie can
more fully understand what she's had to endure, the poor thing.

"Are you OK Darling?"

Yes, Mom

"Did they hurt you?"

No, Mom.

"Did they ...touch you?"

No, Mom.

Meanwhile, just like in Halloween I, the bad guys KEEP coming back
and KEEP coming back, so there's no need to run to safety, is there Jodie?
The guy who took the sledgehammer to the head and fell over the rail to
the floor below and gets right back up.

By now, I'm rooting for the damn killers.

#21
It's obvious early on that the daughter is the only one in the house with half a clue.
After the bad guy gives her the shot of life-saving insulin (he's such a nice evildoer)
the kid palms the unused hypos and I'm thinking, "Why is she doing that?
Does insulin hurt a non-diabetic?"

Later, when the sociopathic Dwight Yoakum is beating Jodie's head into the floor,
the kid stands there and wonders when might be a good time to assist her mother.
So after about twenty head slams, the kid jumps on Yoakum's back and stabs him with the hypo.

Excuse me, but Yoakum has already lost four fingers to the panic room steel door.
I doubt a needle prick is going to prove to be much of a distraction to him.
Mr Director, why did you spend the time to show us she was palming the needles?
When did giving out false clues become good filmmaking?
 

There were 20 others, but I couldn't remember them all.
Maybe when the DVD comes out we'll finish the list.
 

Jodie, you owe me two hours.
Next time you're ready to spend $45 on a film, write to me
and I'll help you spackle in those Texas-sized holes in the plot, OK?