Let's not beat around the bush: PENTHOUSE NORTH is a modernized rip-off of WAIT UNTIL DARK. Both movies have the same core premise: a woman blinded in an accident (or in this case, a terrorist attack) is terrorized in her NYC apartment by criminals out to find stolen goods brought to her home, only she does not know where they are. Unfortunately for PENTHOUSE NORTH, despite more overt violence, it isn't even an eighth as scary as the older movie, which brilliantly built to a chilling confrontation in the dark and culminated in actual development for the traumatized, insecure protagonist played with real warmth and vulnerability by Audrey Hepburn. Heck, PENTHOUSE NORTH's not even as memorable as other thrillers which also used this concept in the past fifty years. SEE NO EVIL and HUSH are also superior thrillers about women with disabilities in peril, mainly because they are actually, well, thrilling. PENTHOUSE NORTH's highest dramatic moment is when Michael Keaton throws a cat off a roof. That's how lacking in tension this movie is.
The biggest problem with this movie is that the heroine's disability feels needless. Aside from one or two scenes with the men hiding around when she thinks she is alone, Sarah could have been just a woman with sight and the movie would have largely played out the same. The Afghanistan prologue and flashbacks are beyond pointless: the main action takes place three years after Sarah is blinded, by which time she's adjusted to her condition, more or less, making me wonder why the war-scene flashbacks are necessary since they lead to no significant character development or revelations. Aside from learning her boyfriend is a criminal (or... did she? The ending scene suggests she might have known... I think??), Sarah does not change or grow.
The thrills are mostly predictable and the villains are basic types. The character Chad is presented like a scary psychopath, but he's more of a dumb thug, and Michael Keaton phones it in as the smooth-talking brains of the criminal duo. There's not much of a cat-and-mouse game going on between Sarah and her assailants: it's mostly them torturing/groping/threatening her, then she briefly finds a means of escaping, only to be recaptured, rinse and repeat. Stakes don't build. Sarah never changes as a character. Nothing.
And that's this movie as a whole: a generic waste of time that can't even rise to the level of so bad it's good.
The biggest problem with this movie is that the heroine's disability feels needless. Aside from one or two scenes with the men hiding around when she thinks she is alone, Sarah could have been just a woman with sight and the movie would have largely played out the same. The Afghanistan prologue and flashbacks are beyond pointless: the main action takes place three years after Sarah is blinded, by which time she's adjusted to her condition, more or less, making me wonder why the war-scene flashbacks are necessary since they lead to no significant character development or revelations. Aside from learning her boyfriend is a criminal (or... did she? The ending scene suggests she might have known... I think??), Sarah does not change or grow.
The thrills are mostly predictable and the villains are basic types. The character Chad is presented like a scary psychopath, but he's more of a dumb thug, and Michael Keaton phones it in as the smooth-talking brains of the criminal duo. There's not much of a cat-and-mouse game going on between Sarah and her assailants: it's mostly them torturing/groping/threatening her, then she briefly finds a means of escaping, only to be recaptured, rinse and repeat. Stakes don't build. Sarah never changes as a character. Nothing.
And that's this movie as a whole: a generic waste of time that can't even rise to the level of so bad it's good.