“Do you ever get the feeling you’re dead?”  That’s the first line in Henry Bromell’s Panic, and it’s uttered by an upper-middle-class man in the throes of a midlife crisis.  Sounds a little like the beginning of American Beauty, eh?  If you think that’s bad, wait until you learn that the character is also a killer-for-hire who visits a shrink.  Now there’s something we haven’t seen in a while.

 Thankfully, Panic isn’t just a derivative knockoff of Beauty or the whole shrink/hitman thing from Analyze This and The Sopranos.  While the film’s characters are pretty decently fleshed out, and its story follows a fairly predictable trajectory, Panic’s real drawing card is its fantastic cast.  Each turns in great performances that keep the film interesting and fresh, despite the fact its content was lifted from the day-old rack at the Hollywood Food Market.

William H. Macy (State and Main) plays Alex, unhappy husband to Martha (Tracey Ullman, Small Time Crooks) and father to precocious six-year-old Sammy (David Dorfman, Bounce).  Alex has two jobs – one running a moderately successful mail-order business from his home, and the other as a contract killer for his father (Donald Sutherland, Space Cowboys).  It’s the latter that lands him on the couch of Dr. Josh Parks (John Ritter, Felicity).

Alex tells Dr. Parks about meeting a girl named Sarah (Neve Campbell, Scream 3) who doesn’t make him feel dead.  Coincidentally, he met Sarah while waiting in Dr. Parks’ waiting room (never a good place to pick up women, if you ask me).  Alex explains that he was instantly smitten with Sarah, and that the no-nonsense bisexual eventually fell in love with his wonderfully sad eyes.

Dr. Parks bolsters Alex’s confidence to stand up to his overbearing father, who simply refuses to believe that his only son wants to quit the family business.  When Alex receives a photograph of his next target, it sends him reeling.  His life is truly at a crossroads.  Does he choose his supportive wife, or the hot manic chick?  Mail-order or contract killing?  Wouldn’t we all like to have choices like these to make?

Bromell, an executive producer for Northern Exposure and Homicide, makes his feature-film writing and directorial debuts with Panic, with the latter easily outclassing the former.  He cleverly uses flashbacks to a series of firsts in Alex’s life (first encounters with Martha, Dr. Parks and Sarah, first firearms lesson from his father, first professional hit) to bring us into the character’s life.  The scenes featuring Alex and little Sammy are touching and done rather well.

With this role, Campbell displays talent we haven’t seen since the first two seasons of Party of Five.  It’s really nice to see Ullman doing something where I don’t want to choke the shit out of her (read:  not playing multiple, unfunny characters), and what can you say about Macy?  He turns in another typically incredible performance as Alex – a bit of a cross between his “Quiz Kid” Donnie Smith from Magnolia and Jerry Lundegaard from Fargo.

1:28 –

for adult language and violence