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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mel O&#039;Drama" data-source="post: 434480" data-attributes="member: 23">Don't Say A Word (2001) <img src="https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fpics.filmaffinity.com%2Fdon_t_say_a_word-559455490-large.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=e6ece0bd091caa44292510866fac704bfb04d452d9d196668dfe8c36af4f8f55" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" />Another blind watch. The name sounded familiar, but I don't recall having any awareness of this film until I added it to my watch list this week based on the description:Reading this, I'd assumed the patient was the one who kidnapped the daughter, but no... it's much more twisty than this. I thoroughly enjoyed the way we began watching  several different plots play out, particularly the police officer investigating a series of murders, which seemed like its own separate little story. It was only when the various strands dovetailed that I noticed how separate they had been, so I thought it was nicely done as skeins go.The above blurb doesn't seem to be entirely accurate, by the way, since I'm pretty sure Douglas's character introduced himself as a psychiatrist.With faces like Oliver Platt and Famke Janssen who seemed to be popping up all over the place in the late Nineties and early Noughties, before falling off the radar again (well, my radar, certainly), it feels rather of its time, but not necessarily in a bad way. Incidentally, I was convinced that Tim Roth played the treacherous gang member we were trying to find out more about, but also fascinated that he was prettier here than he was in The Incredible Hulk (which I put down to this being some years earlier). Turns out he was another actor entirely, Shawn Doyle. Meanwhile, his namesake, Sheffield's own Sean Bean is the baddie here, and as reliable as ever.To me this film has some of the same energy as some of the post-Silence Of The Lambs thrillers that followed that film's template to become almost their own sub-genre around this time. Think The Bone Collector, Copycat and the like. All have the professional interacting with the law enforcement in strange circumstances in a time-critical race to save abductees from The Big Bad before something terrible happens, all while facing up to some terrible unspoken trauma from years past. That familiarity is a double-edged sword. It might not be the best of the bunch, but at least it's somewhat familiar, and it's a treat to discover one of these sub-Silence films quarter of a century on.One of the joys of reading up on films after watching, rather than before, is I can watch the film free of bias and pre-judgement. It appears this one was very poorly received by critics and reviewers, but I don't have to  jump on that bandwagon. This viewer felt it was 100 minutes well-spent, and I'm perfectly happy to be in the minority on that.It could well be. Having seen some of the names on the New Year Honours list, I find myself thinking (not for the first time) that awards are all meaningless anyway. Every other person seems to get one just for showing up these days.It's a while since I've watched, but my overall impression was of Depp channelling  Michael Jackson (who also sought the role himself).(But a quick peek on Wikipedia suggests he based it on various children's TV hosts and Anna Wintour, with a dash of George W. Bush).I recently watched the BBC's Rise Of The Nazis documentary series and found myself unsettled by the parallels with the way politics have gone in recent years. And not just in America.</blockquote>

Verification: Who played JR Ewing?