Have you ever been in a phone booth and the phone has rung? If so, did you answer it? And if you’ve not been in that situation, would you answer it? Chances are that you did or would, and it was a boring wrong number. But would you do it again after watching Phone Booth?
Phone Booth opens with the best opening credits I’ve seen in a long time. It takes the hustle and bustle of New York, throws in some lettering and splits the screen into a hundred blocks of different people talking on different phones.
Enter Stu Shephard, an arrogant, word-spinning, materialistic publicist peddling lies on his cellphone to a host of different people as he strides through New York’s hectic streets. We dislike him instantly, though .
We dislike him even more when he enters the phone booth he enters each day to call a naïve young woman he is promising to make into a star but really just wants to sleep with. He uses the booth to call her as his wife checks his cellphone records.
So far it’s just an ordinary day of lying, cheating and making money. And then a pizza is delivered to the booth. It is for him. And then the phone in the booth rings. Either out of curiosity, or as an automatic reaction for a man who lives by phone, he picks it up.
The nightmare
begins…
A mystery man has been watching Stu. He knows about Stu’s life. He knows about the phone calls to the young woman, he knows where Stu’s wife works, he knows that Stu has an assistant who he treats with disdain. He thinks Stu is evil and needs to repent. From an unknown but strategic location, he is watching Stu right now. And most importantly of all, he has a gun pointing straight at Stu and will kill him instantly if Stu hangs up the phone and does not follow his orders.
Other people want to use the phone, but Stu cannot hang up. One of them gets violent and is shot by the mystery man. Pandemonium strikes and the police arrive, thinking Stu’s the perpetrator. But Stu cannot hang up the phone or leave the booth.
For the duration of the film, from the confines of the booth, Stu has to yield to the killer’s demands, prevent himself getting shot by the gang of police marksmen who are surrounding him, and prevent both his wife and the girl he was calling from getting killed when they arrive at the scene. And soon it’s all happening live on national television.
Stu is played by Colin Farrell, and a very good job he does too. His change from arrogant, smooth-talking publicist to terrified and actually rather decent human being is utterly believable. He’s the star of the movie and carries it with confidence and finesse.
The ever-dependable Forrest Whittaker, as the Chief of Police who’s trying to get Stu out of the booth without anyone getting killed, is also very good. Whittaker and Farrell work well together and produce a wonderful comedic element as the two men completely at odds – Whittaker thinking Stu is mad and Stu compounding to this by acting very strangely indeed as the mystery killer directs his every move.
The one casting problem for me is the mystery man himself who is played by Kiefer Sutherland. We don’t see Sutherland until the very end of the movie so only know him through his voice. The trouble is, we know Sutherland’s voice so well from 24 that it’s hard to separate him from that, and I found that this interfered with my enjoyment. At times I didn’t know if I was listening to his disembodied voice in Phone Booth or in the opening credits to 24.
Another problem with Sutherland’s voice was that it doesn’t sound like it would coming through a telephone. It is clearly a ‘voice-over’ spoken directly into a mike. , though we are supposed to be hearing it from Farrell’s perspective, i.e. through a telephone wire.
That’s a relatively minor problem, though, and elsewhere I have nothing but praise for the direction.
Joel Schumacher does a superb job on this film. First introducing us to a frenetic technological New York where the world is literally in the palm of everyone’s hand via their cellphone, he then squeezes us into a panic-stricken claustrophobic bad dream where technology is the enemy and the seething crowd surrounding our hero serves only to make him more alone.
Phone Booth is a short film at 81 minutes and is all the more riveting because of that. Not once do we get bored by the physical confines of the action. In fact, the claustrophobic setting is at the core of the movie’s tension. And just in case the viewer does get bored, Schumacher has a few split-screen tricks up his sleeve to widen out the emphasis.
The script is intelligent and sharp, and coupled Farrell’s portrayal this makes the movie tense, funny, pathetic, emotive and sinister many times over.
The ‘surprise’ ending isn’t that much of a surprise, but for me it didn’t matter too much.
Phone Booth is everything and more than the decidedly average Panic Room could have been and is a refreshing change from your usual ‘victim in distress’ dross churned out by Hollywood.
Not brilliant, but highly recommended as a slick thriller with a difference that will keep you gripped from start to finish.
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
Thriller - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over - Starring: Timothy West, Neil Morrissey, Tara Fitzgerald, Annette Crosbie, Pauline Quirke, Rob Brydon, Denise Van Outen, John Thomson, Kevin Whately, David Suchet
Production Year: 2002 - Thriller - Director: Bharat Nalluri, Rob Bailey, Andy Wilson - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over - Starring: Matthew MacFadyen, Keeley Hawes, David Oyelowo, Peter Firth, Jenny Agutter, Lisa Faulkner
I was disappointed with this. I saw it at the weekend for the first time and thought it was going to be a lot more gripping than it was.
COOOEEE 21.10.2003 14:27
I once answered a call in a phone box in a town I had never been to and I ended up knowing the person on the other end that I had lost touch with. Spooky. Fionaxx
Ophelia 21.10.2003 10:27
I really enjoyed the film too and you are sooooooo right about the ending!
For a film confined almost entirely to one tiny location,Phone Boothhas been the centre of ... more
a lot of off-screen action: changing lead man from Will Smith to Jim Carrey to Colin Farrell, with various directors attached, and finally postponed as a result ...
Postage & Packaging: £1.21 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
Stu Shepard (Colin Farrell) is an arrogant publicist lying his way to success in New York. ... more
Everything changes however when he unknowingly answers a call in a phone booth he's been using to cheat on his wife. Now he is at the mercy of the caller (Kiefer...
For a film confined almost entirely to one tiny location,Phone Boothhas been the centre of ... more
a lot of off-screen action: changing lead man from Will Smith to Jim Carrey to Colin Farrell, with various directors attached, and finally postponed as a result ...
Postage & Packaging: Free! Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours...
A single phone call can change a man's life...or possibly end it. Stu Shepard is a ... more
self-centered New York City publicist who suddenly finds himself on the deadly end of a high-powered rifle scope. Now it's a real-time race against the clock as Stu must...
Postage & Packaging: £0.00 Availability: 3-5 working days
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