Read Time:2 Minute, 5 Second
Phone Booth is a short
(81 minutes), relatively low-budget (only $10 million) film. But what else can you
expect, really? Pretty much the whole thing takes place in a phone booth…
Colin Farrell plays Stu Shepard, a slimy New York City publicist who will
(and usually does) do anything to make a deal. One afternoon—while making his daily
phone call to Pam (Katie Holmes), his client and prospective mistress, from a phone booth
in Manhattan (so his wife won’t see the calls on his cell phone bill)—the phone rings
just as he’s about to leave the booth. He answers and is instantly thrown into a
life-or-death situation. The man on the other end (grittily voiced by Kiefer Sutherland)
tells Stu that he knows all about Pam—and about all the lying and cheating Stu does on a
daily basis. And he decides that Stu deserves to die for his crimes.
The Caller forbids Stu to hang up the phone. He’s calling from a room
nearby, he says, and he’ll shoot if Stu disobeys him. As Stu listens to The Caller’s
demands, he fights off other people who want to make a call—and one of them dies, thanks
to a bullet from The Caller’s gun. That’s when the cops show up, led by Captain Ramey
(Forest Whitaker). And the TV cameras show up, too. And so do Pam and Stu’s wife, Kelly
(Radha Mitchell). As Captain Ramey tries to coax Stu out of the booth, The Caller makes
more demands—and the lives of everyone on the street are suddenly in Stu’s hands.
It took me a long time to get into this movie, which says a lot,
considering it’s so short. I was just plain bored. But as the minutes passed, the movie
intensified, and the suspense built up—and the last half was actually quite exciting.
Overall, though, I give it a so-so rating. The suspense (in the last half, of course)
was dizzying at times, but the story was a bit questionable. And sometimes I just wished
that The Caller would just shoot Stu already and get it over with.
If
you really want to see this movie, don’t let me stop you. After all, it’s so short that
if you end up hating it you won’t be upset by the hours you wasted watching it. But
there are definitely better thrillers out there.
Kristin Dreyer Kramer has been writing in some form or another (usually when she was supposed to be doing something else) since the ripe old age of ten—when she, her cousin, and their two Cabbage Patch Dolls formed the Poo Authors’ Club. After a short career in advertising, Kristin got sick of always saying nice things about stuff that didn’t deserve it—so now she spends her days criticizing things, and she’s much happier for it.
Since creating NightsAndWeekends.com in February of 2002, Kristin has spent her life surrounded by piles and piles of books and movies—so many that her office has become a kind of entertainment obstacle course.
As if her writing and editing responsibilities for N&W.com weren’t enough to keep her out of trouble, Kristin also hosts a number of weekly radio shows: Reel Discovery, Shelf Discovery, and On the Marquee. She’s also a proud member of the Broadcast Film Critics Association (CriticsChoice.com), the Central Ohio Film Critics Association (COFCA.org), the Online Film Critics Society (OFCS.org), and the Women Film Critics Circle (WFCC.Wordpress.com).
Kristin lives in Columbus, Ohio, with her husband, Paul, and their daughter, Anna. She welcomes questions, comments, and fan mail at kdk@nightsandweekends.com.
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Kristin Dreyer Kramer has been writing in some form or another (usually when she was supposed to be doing something else) since the ripe old age of ten—when she, her cousin, and their two Cabbage Patch Dolls formed the Poo Authors’ Club. After a short career in advertising, Kristin got sick of always saying nice things about stuff that didn’t deserve it—so now she spends her days criticizing things, and she’s much happier for it.
Since creating NightsAndWeekends.com in February of 2002, Kristin has spent her life surrounded by piles and piles of books and movies—so many that her office has become a kind of entertainment obstacle course.
As if her writing and editing responsibilities for N&W.com weren’t enough to keep her out of trouble, Kristin also hosts a number of weekly radio shows: Reel Discovery, Shelf Discovery, and On the Marquee. She’s also a proud member of the Broadcast Film Critics Association (CriticsChoice.com), the Central Ohio Film Critics Association (COFCA.org), the Online Film Critics Society (OFCS.org), and the Women Film Critics Circle (WFCC.Wordpress.com).
Kristin lives in Columbus, Ohio, with her husband, Paul, and their daughter, Anna. She welcomes questions, comments, and fan mail at kdk@nightsandweekends.com.
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