You know a movie’s promotional gears are in full swing when you hear family members who hardly ever watch television singing lines from the TV spot. "I’ll never tell. I’ll never tell," my mother sang, overhearing the commercial for the new Michael Douglas thriller from the kitchen. I’ll have to admit that it is one of those lines that sticks in your head, whether you have any desire to see the movie or not.

From the trailer, I already knew what to expect, and my interest in seeing the movie lie mostly in finding out what the rather attractive girl from the trailer would "never tell." The kidnapper in the trailer tells us that it is a six-digit number. The mystery is in what the number means. This mystery was a promising sign for the story. Otherwise, it would have been the same old plot redone with different actors. You know the story. Man is rich and happy with family. Man discovers child is missing. Man is unhappy. Man wants child back. Man fights. Man gets…" well, you know where it’s going. It would be nice to see something different, like maybe the kidnappers taking the family dog. Wait. I think that’s been done. Benji and Lassie covered it. Okay, so how about the family goldfish? There’s an idea. Although, I can’t picture Mel Gibson screaming into the phone, "Gimmie back my fish!" The point I’m making is that if you’re going to jump into an already crowded genre, you better either be somewhat original or else bring a life preserver.

Director Gary Fleder (Kiss the Girls, Things to Do in Denver When Your Dead) and screenwriter Anthony Peckham only seemed to have had a moderate grasp of this notion. Most of the time the movie was reminiscent of the majority of these pictures. However, to Fleder and Peckham’s credit, the film was done well. The necessary elements of suspense emerged from the unfolding plot in an orderly and consistent fashion. There were no unwanted surprises. However, as a result of this the plot was often predictable. Here, I’m not referring to the overall story. That is already known. I’m referring to the development of each scene. Most of the time we can foresee how the suspense is going to unfold several scenes prior to it actually happening, causing us to whisper, "I could see that coming," as if we are on a higher plain of intelligence than the rest of the audience. Then we realize that everyone around us is whispering the same thing, and the last thing that a movie needs is a theater full of people who begin to lose faith in the element of surprise. Fortunately, there is a unique touch to this picture that distracts our own ingenious premonitions.

We come upon the story of the seemingly psychotic young lady, Elisabeth Burrows, played well by Brittany Murphy (Clueless). She continued the tradition of beautiful mental patients that Angelina Jolie and Wynonna Ryder started in "Girl Interrupted." It’s amazing how girls who are supposed to be strung out and doped up on medication, while at the same time starving themselves to death, still look ghostly attractive. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not complaining. I just think it takes a talented makeup artist to convincingly bring forth both sides, not to mention a talented actress, and Brittany Murphy convinces us of her talent as we watch her in the role of Elizabeth.

Through the kidnapping of his daughter, Dr. Nathan Conrad (Michael Douglas) was blackmailed into making an attempt to extract the number that was locked in Elizabeth’s mind. He used his skill as a psychiatrist to quickly try and unlock the secrets that Elizabeth had suppressed in her mind. The kidnappers gave him little time to do this, which created an environment of suspense and discovery. Dr. Conrad and Elizabeth formed a special bond, not a patient-doctor type relationship, but more of a father-daughter one. He quickly gained her trust. These scenes were enjoyable to watch. Without them, the movie would have been helplessly lost among other films of its kind such as Ron Howard’s similar thriller, "Ransom."

The main villain, Patrick Koster (Sean Bean), was fitting as the obsessed kidnapper. Sean Bean has played similar roles before, most notably in 1992’s "Patriot Games" where he terrorized Harrison Ford and family. Koster will stop at nothing to find the location of his priceless red gem, which looked like a ruby. We never really learn the value of this jewel, and I found myself longing to know more about its history. Without knowing more about the jewel, it was hard to understand the villains’ obsession, especially Koster’s. They killed everyone who had betrayed them years earlier, and they even took the lives of innocent people. The villains, led by Koster, seemed to be too brutal at times. Setting up the plan and utilizing the technology that they did made them seem a little too intelligent to have been so unintelligently ruthless. Quickly, Detective Sandra Cassidy (Jennifer Esposito) was onto their trail of killing as she pieced together the clues from the murders. What good was finding the jewel going to do for them if they all ended up on death row? But it’s the twenty-first century, and most filmmakers seem to believe that the more people that the villain kills, the more we’ll dislike him.

Michael Douglas was solid as usual, and he gave a decent performance as Dr. Conrad. Douglas is an experienced actor who knows how to deliver a scene from many years of practice. Famke Janssen played his much younger wife. Her performance was strong, at least strong enough so that we quickly disregard their age difference. Other actresses in the same age group couldn’t have pulled this off. Skye McCole Bartusiak played their kidnapped daughter, Jessie. Her character was the usual for this type of picture; cute and at some point she outsmarts the dumbest bad guy, causing him to be reprimanded by the smartest bad guy.

Despite a few small problems and only a moderate sense of originality, "Don’t Say a Word" was worth sitting through. If you enter the theater with your drink and tub of popcorn expecting the average thriller, then you’ll leave the theater feeling satisfied, but if you expect something more upon entering, then you may leave still feeling a little hungry.