Quartile rating: 6.5/10 · 1 rating
When the daughter of a psychiatrist is kidnapped, he is horrified to discover that the abductors' demand is that he break through to a young woman, suffering from PTSD, who knows a secret six digit code number.
Don't Say a Word is a competent but formulaic early-2000s thriller. The premise of a psychiatrist forced to extract a code from a traumatized patient while his daughter is held hostage is intriguing but the execution leans heavily on genre conventions—ticking clocks, surveillance cat-and-mouse, and a predictable resolution. Michael Douglas delivers a solid lead performance and Brittany Murphy brings some genuine unease to her role, but the supporting cast is largely one-dimensional. Cinematography is workmanlike New York thriller fare without distinctive visual flair. The film offers little that hadn't been seen before in similar hostage-psychiatrist thrillers, and the ending wraps up too neatly and with little surprise, undercutting the tension built earlier. A watchable but unremarkable entry in the genre.