Lifetime Review: 'Safe Room'

In the months since Lila Jackson (Nicole Ari Parker) lost her husband to a tragic car accident, her world has revolved around her 14-year-old Autistic son Ian (Nik Sanchez). While their house may look modest from the outside, the inside comes with plenty of high-tech equipment--including a reinforced safe room. This proves to be of great use to the mother-son duo when Ian ends up witnessing a violent crime.

While using his camera, Ian inadvertently records a pair of intruders as they attack and kill one of his neighbors. The culprits--Rocco and Dominic (Drea de Matteo and Mackenzie Astin) subsequently invade Lila and Ian's home to destroy the incriminating evidence against them, forcing the Jacksons to take refuge in the safe room. Trapped and without a means of contacting help, Lila and Ian will have to rely on courage, clever thinking, and each other in order to survive.

Back in December 2021, Autistic actor Nik Sanchez made his film debut on the Hallmark channel with Our Christmas Journey. Now a month later, Sanchez has gone on to make his Lifetime debut with Safe Room, a thriller that could best be described as an unofficial remake of 2002's Panic Room. In just the opening minutes, it became clear that Ian Jackson would be a character I'd relate to on a personal level. From his monotoned voice to his aversion to public speaking, I saw a lot of my own Autism in Ian's Autism. Sanchez gives an incredibly sympathetic performance, with Safe Room's intense story and Ian being a much more active character than Marcus giving him more room to shine. You'll feel for poor Ian as he's threatened and terrorized for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. As far as representation goes, Safe Room arguably does a better job than Our Christmas Journey, seeing as how Ian has much more screentime than Marcus and plays some crucial roles in his and Lila's battle for their lives.

As for Lila, Sanchez is in excellent company with Nicole Ari Parker. From beginning to end, Parker dedicates herself to her role as much as Lila dedicates herself to Ian. In the opening, we see how compassionate and loving Lila is towards her son. We also see how she doesn't view Ian as someone she needs to infantilize or coddle. Instead, she gives Ian encouragement not to let his disability stop him from pursuing his dreams and gently guides him through the harder parts of his Autism. Parker never lets you forget that Lila is willing to do anything to protect her son and throws herself into all of the emotions Lila has throughout her and Ian's predicament. Lila and Ian's love serves as the beating heart of Safe Room, so it's a great thing that Parker and Sanchez blend so well together. You feel and believe in the bond between Lila and Ian and root for them to survive their ordeal.

(Two memorably sweet moments between Lila and Ian: when Ian leads Lila in a "calm-down countdown" during a particularly low moment instead of the other way around and when Lila gives Ian a pep talk about how brave and strong he's been and how his Autism doesn't make him any less of a person.)

Opposite the mother-son duo, we have the criminal duo of Rocco and Dominic. Through just their introductory scenes with Lila, Dominic and Rocco showcase their polar opposite personalities/moralities, as greatly portrayed by Mackenzie Astin and Drea de Matteo. While Dominic mostly keeps his temper in check and is wary about the idea of hurting innocent people, Rocco is very quick to resort to violence and wouldn't know moral fiber if it whacked her in the face. Matteo relishes in playing the casually heartless Rocco and Astin will have you feeling surprisingly bad for Dominic. He may be a thief, but Dominic makes it clear he never signed up to be a murderer. He was even willing to leave Lila and Ian alone once the video evidence against him and Rocco was deleted; it's because of Rocco that things escalate into a hostage situation. You'll be cheering whenever Dominic calls her out for her cruelty and for complicating what should've been a simple burglary.

WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW

The surprise third member of Rocco and Dominic's criminal triad is Neil Hargrove, Lila's seemingly friendly new neighbor. Being played by Boris Kodjoe, Safe Room's director and Nicole Ari Parker's husband, I was expecting Neil to just be Lila's love interest who would end up helping her escape from Rocco and Dominic in the final act. After he got Lila's SOS text and told her (through a scene involving some very bad ADR) he was coming into the house to help them, I was thinking Neil was either Rocco and Dominic's boss or an absolute moron about to get himself killed storming the Jackson house without calling the police.

Then a slip of the tongue exposes him and Neil's nice guy façade drops like a brick. Even if you're like me and have preemptive suspicions going into the reveal, Kodjoe's portrayal of the real Neil Hargrove is nonetheless chilling. With only a quarter of the screentime that Rocco had, Neil manages to outdo his co-conspirator when it comes to being pure evil. Kodjoe puts on an effectively innocuous front during Neil's first interactions with Lila, and apart from some laughable camera mugging during the climax, he's just as good when Neil lets his stone-cold heart show. My only other issue with Neil is how he's responsible for Rocco's anticlimactic demise. After everything she put Lila and Ian through, it would've been more satisfying to see Rocco meet her maker at the hands of a scorned mama bear.

Speaking of Lila, there's a pair of Idiot Ball moments in Safe Room that need to be discussed in the Spoiler section. The first happens in regards to Officer Armani. Monica Calhoun gives a surprisingly touching cameo as the empathetic officer, with Armani springing into action the second she realizes something is amiss. Unfortunately, because her arresting Dominic would end the movie too soon, she makes a classic movie cop mistake in not considering that her perp might have an accomplice--an oversight that costs Officer Armani her life. Then Lila and Ian pick up the ball while retrieving Ian's phone. When Rocco catches them, they quickly get the safe room door open and Lila uses it to knock Rocco down. But rather than immediately shutting the door, Lila and Ian stop to stare at Rocco for a moment. It makes no sense for two otherwise smart protagonists to do this and their uncharacteristic lapse in judgment earns Ian a gashed leg.

Spoilers Over

In addition to the well-written characters and the talented actors playing them, Safe Room boasts a steady pace for a suspense thriller. It keeps the action from growing stale and is sure to keep you on the edge of your seat as you watch Lila and Ian play a cat-and-mouse game with the people holding them captive in their own home. To go along with the action, the film offers a lot of heart through the familial love that motivates Lila and Ian to fight back and stand strong in the face of danger. So while it might not have explosions or a pre-Twilight Kristen Stewart like Panic Room, Safe Room has just as much to offer story-wise and acting-wise as its early aughts counterpart.

Score: 9 out of 10 space heaters.