hyped garbage

Good concept, poorly executed.

Absolutely the worst movie.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

A sad, unfortunate fact about this movie is that the 2 young female stars Brittany Murphy and Skye McCole Bartusiak (who plays the daughter of Michael Douglas) both died in a young age.Anyway, this is a conventional thriller, nothing extraordinary. Although the critics hated it, it manage to become a commercial success doubling its budget in box office.The plot is flimsy and fragile: The daughter of a psychiatrist is kidnapped, and her kidnappers want from his to "extract" a secret from a young woman who is imprisoned in a mental institution, that could lead them to a valuable object they tried to stole some years ago.It starts slow but soon some action picks-up but it becomes exaggerated and coincidental maybe even absurd.Michael Douglas does what he cans to save the movie but doesn't seem enough.Overall: If you can catch it on TV watch it, but never think of paying a single dollar/euro/whatever for it.

Michael Douglas is a psychiatrist. The bad guys, led by Sean Bean, kidnap his little daughter and threaten to off her unless Douglas can somehow pry a six-digit number out of a recalcitrant paranoid patient, Brittany Murphy, who is hospitalized evidently forever because she's suffering from PTSD due to a childhood incident.Douglas doesn't really stretch his acting chops. I guess movie shrinks are rarely excitable anyway. Sean Bean, even when he plays a sympathetic role, seems built for villainous parts because the default setting for his features is a slightly mean frown. He must frown in his sleep. Famke Janssen make another good but impotent victim as Douglas's bedridden wife with one of her infinitely long legs in a cast. She's being threatened too, although she hasn't been kidnapped. That makes two threatened women, one of them a child. Count 'em. Bean and his pals give Douglas a limited time to extract the secret number from the deranged Murphy. The clock is ticking. Is this a thriller or what? Oliver Platt as a fellow psychiatrist -- whose girl friend is also under threat of death, making three women in jeopardy -- is fine, as always. He's great in supporting roles and didn't make enough movies.Brittany Murphy -- well, I have a problem with her. Not her looks or her figure. She's cute, tiny, and girlish, and when Douglas first meets her she sneaks a hand under her sweat shirt and asks him, "Want to touch?" I thought it was a highly artistic scene. But that name -- "Brittany." Brittany is not a woman's name. It is a cultural region of northwestern France, a former duchy, known for its seafood and for Mont St. Michel. This whole wretched business began with the celebrity of Brittny Spears, who couldn't even spell it right. A travesty. Girls should have names like Elizabeth, Linda, and Barbara. Not Brittany, Beyonce, or Gaga. Let's hear no more about Brittanies, unless we're talking gastronomy.Like all effective thrillers, this one ought to keep your mind occupied if not exactly engaged. Surveillance, treachery, throttling, lurid flashbacks, car pursuits, women in jeopardy, parents frantic with worry, and the like are standard stuff in thrillers, and there is some interesting shooting on Potter's Field, the graveyard for nameless dead bodies on Hart Island in the East River. I never knew there was a REAL Potter's Field. Actually, there might not be, but I won't bother looking it up.

'Don't Say a Word' covers familiar territory, to say the least. The first few minutes shows us what Dr. Nathan Conrad is in for: A jewel he must find to get his kidnapped daughter back. For the most part, the movie does work, and Sean Bean makes an effective villain. What didn't work for me, however, were the scenes where this poor doctor has to visit a mental patient (played by Murphy). I didn't buy her as this character. Or maybe it was they way she was acting, I don't know. She should have been either less shy, or more crazy. Take her scenes away, and this movie could have better than it is. I do give the movie credit for trying to be original, but the half of the movie featuring Murphy is a misfire.**1/2 out of ****

Well-trussed New York psychiatrist Michael Douglas (as Nathan Conrad) finds his world unraveling, after cute 8-year-old daughter Skye McCole Bartusiak (as Jessie) is kidnapped by psychotic Sean Bean (as Patrick Koster). For ransom, the crooked Mr. Bean wants Mr. Douglas to pry a six-digit number from the disturbed mind of squirrelly patient Brittany Murphy (as Elisabeth Burrows). Douglas wife Famke Jansen (as Aggie) worries from home, due to a broken leg. Somehow, Jennifer Esposito (as Sandra Cassidy) gets herself involved. The film's title advises "Don't Say a Word," when actually, there isn't much to tell. Ms. Murphy is most memorable.***** Don't Say a Word (9/24/01) Gary Fleder ~ Michael Douglas, Brittany Murphy, Sean Bean, Famke Janssen