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Burnham is one of the three antagonists of the film Panic Room, though he is not evil or cruel like the other two, as he needs money to feed his family. He was played by Forrest Whitaker.
| “ | This is what I do. If some idiot with a sledgehammer could break in, do you really think that i would still have a job? | „ |
| ~ Burnham to Junior and Raul. |
Biography[]
Background[]
Burnham worked on the construction of a panic room in the house of a reclusive millionaire. When the old millionaire died, rich pharmacist Stephen Altman bought the house for his ex-wife and eleven-year-old daughter, Meg and Sarah.
Meanwhile, Junior, the grandson of the house's previous owner, hired Burnham, an employee of the home's security company, and Raul, a thug that he knows, to help him break in, with the intention to steal bearer bonds locked inside a floor safe inside the panic room, as Junior doesn't want to share them with his extended family when his grandfather's estate is settled in probate.
Panic Room[]
They break into the house at night, assuming that the house's new residents had not moved in yet, but they happened to break in on Meg and Sarah's first night sleeping there. When Meg awoke during the night to use the bathroom, she spotted the three men on the security cameras in the panic room, so she abruptly awakens Sarah and they rush to the panic room. The men chase after them to subdue them, but they are too late and locked outside the panic room.
To force them out, the men, with Burnham's knowledge, pump propane gas into the room's air vents. Meg ignites the gas while she and Sarah cover themselves with fire blankets, and the ignited propane leaves Junior badly burned. Meg then uses a wire and taps into the main telephone line to call her ex-husband. As she attempts to explain their situation to Stephen, the intruders cut the line, abruptly ending the call.
After several failed attempts to breach the room, Junior gives up on the robbery. As he does so, he lets slip that the bearer bonds in the safe are worth much more money than he initially disclosed. When he attempts to leave, Raul doesn't want to risk Junior getting them arrested, so he shoots and kills Junior. Raul then forces Burnham to continue with the robbery, but Stephen arrives and is immediately taken hostage. Raul severely beats him, assuring that Meg sees it on the security camera. Sarah, a diabetic, then suffers a seizure, as her glucagon syringes are in her bedroom.
Raul tricks Meg into thinking it is safe to temporarily leave the panic room, but when she leaves to retrieve Sarah's medication, the two men enter the room with an incapacitated Sarah still inside. Meg manages to throw the med kit in just as Burnham closes the door, and through the intercom, she pleads with the men to give Sarah her medication, and Burnham reluctantly does so. Two police officers later arrive at the house following up on Stephen's earlier 911 call. Knowing that Raul (and, to her knowledge, Burnham as well) will hurt Sarah if the police find out Sarah, Meg convinces the officers that everything is fine.
The two officers then leave. Meanwhile, Burnham opens the safe and finds $22 million in bearer bonds inside. As the men prepare to leave, with Raul using Sarah as a hostage, Meg leads them into an ambush where she uses a sledgehammer to knock Raoul over a banister and down a stairwell. As Burnham flees, the injured Raul crawls back up and overpowers Meg, preparing to bludgeon her with the sledgehammer. Burnham, hearing Sarah's terrified screams, rushes back and shoots Raul in the back of the head, killing him and popping his eye out. The police, alerted by Meg's odd behaviour from earlier, arrive back at the house in force and apprehend Burnham, who is forced to drop the bearer bonds, which scatter in the wind.
Gallery[]
