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The phone rings and what are you supposed to do? Answer it, that’s what. It is almost a basic human instinct that is part curiosity and part a need to stop the annoying sound. We all fight that urge to answer the ringing phone when it is not ours to answer, but what if it is a random pay phone on the street and we do answer it? Well that’s the basic premise behind Phone Booth, only the phone call is not random. But first we go back a bit, to the beginning. We open up on Manhattan where we the audience are told a bunch of interesting statistics on phone usage in New York before focusing in on one Stewart Shepard (Colin Farrell, Daredevil), or Stu for short. Stu is on his cell phone (sometimes two) doing business as a publicist while berating his young assistant Adam (Keith Nobbs), nothing all that interesting, just a lot of BS. Soon Stu sends Adam on his way to run some errands while he heads to his favorite phone booth on 8th Avenue to call one of his clients, a young a beautiful actress client. Of course, this isn’t strictly business for him, which we can get from him taking off his wedding band before calling Pam (Katie Holmes, Abandon), his client. Unfortunately for Stu, Pam has plans and can’t meet him, so Stu reluctantly hangs up. Then the phone rings, and Stu instinctively answers it, but soon lives to regret that decision. Suddenly Stu discovers that he is talking to some guy claiming to be a sniper on a moral mission, and Stu is his mission today. We also learn that this voice (Kiefer Sutherland, Dark City) knows all about Stu, his wife Kelly (Radha Mitchell, Pitch Black), and even Pam. Then we learn that this caller has a problem with Stu’s voracious ability to lie (and other various transgressions against humanity), and that is why Stu has been chosen for confession; only Stu doesn’t really have a choice in the matter. The catch is that Stu cannot hang up and walk away since the caller will kill him. A little later the police arrive after the caller shoots some pimp named Leon (John Enos, Blade) who was trying to get Stu out of the phone booth so his hookers could use it to do business. However, the police do not know about the sniper, so they assume (with help from accusations from the hookers) that Stu killed Leon, thus they will shoot Stu if he tries to run for cover. Of course Stu can’t tell the police about the sniper because the sniper bugged the phone booth and has told Stu that he will kill him if he tells the police what is going on. Since Stu won’t just hang up, the police start to work on getting him out of there, with Capt. Ramey (Forest Whitaker, Panic Room) in charge of the effort. So now it comes down to this: Can the police solve the crisis, or is Stu on his own? And if Stu is on his own, will he confess his ‘sins’ that will ruin his career, or will he choose to die (or later let the caller kill others in exchange for Stu’s life)? It’s all about morality, which is eerily similar to the DC area sniper situation that delayed the release of this film last year. Director Joel Schumacher (Bad Company) amazingly filmed Phone Booth in just 12 days, though this would have been easy with such a limited set. He also got the film done on just a 10 million dollar budget, which is obscenely low by today’s standards (which means it should be very profitable and will spawn copycats). The film was written by Larry Cohen. Some other people in the film are Paula Jai Parker, Josh Pais, Dell Yount, Richard T. Jones, James MacDonald, Tia Texada, and Arian Waring Ash. Phone Booth is a rather captivating (no pun intended) picture. It is thrilling and suspenseful, just as it should be, and Colin Farrell does a fine job. Kiefer Sutherland has just the right voice to be the caller, and he does a great voice-acting job with his role. Cohen and Schumacher even manage to slip in a few jokes along the way. My only real beefs with the film are that I doubt the police would dedicate so much manpower to a single homicide, and I have a slight problem with the ending (but I’d give away too much if I told you). However, there is nothing there to make this a really good film, so I give Phone Booth eight couches on the About-Movies.com scale. Adios.
Last updated: Thursday, March 20, 2008 02:46:24 AM Click Here to get back into frames.
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