Panic

Panic is a turn of the century (as in the year 2000) family drama masquerading as a crime movie. William H Macy is Alex a hitman undergoing a midlife crisis and attempting to heal his soul via offical methods with a weekly visit to shrink Dr Parks (John Ritter) and the not so official Method of pursuing an affair with fellow patient/waiting room attendee Sarah (Neve Campbell) who is maybe kind of interested.  At home Alex struggles with the ever widening gulf with his wife Martha (Tracy Ullman) and keeping his sensitive son Sammy (David Dorfman) out of the clutches of manipulative Grandpa Michael (Donald Sullivan).  Most other films would have played this as quirky heightened comedy or pushed the violence aspect, but writer/director Henry Bromell instead focused on the family drama and the film is better for it. we delve into Alex’s troubled existence, his childhood innocence stolen and leaving an outwardly stable yet inwardly fragile man, seen through the vessel of ever present Macy’s soulful sad eyes.