MOVIE REVIEW

Phone Booth  (2003)

Starring: Colin Farrell, Kiefer Sutherland
Director: Joel Schumacher

Rating: R

Studio: 20th Century Fox

Review Posted: 4.09.03

Spoilers: Minor

By Christopher T. Bryan

"This Phone Call Is Cut Short"

Phone Booth is an exciting and enthralling movie, but only for half an hour; after which I couldn’t help but wonder why this wasn’t a made-for-TV movie.  Phone Booth’s original November release date turned out to be inappropriate in conjunction with the D.C area sniper attacks; it was quickly pushed back to April. With news coverage and reality shows dominating the airwaves it is hard to forget that sometimes fear and threats are no further away than the thin pane of glass in your window. To come up with a film that isn’t cliché before it even opens becomes difficult.

Stu Shepard (Colin Farrell) is a publicist in New York City, and like most people in New York, he has his own agenda and is willing to step on other people in order to reach his goals. This, coupled with his extra-marital affair with Pamela (Katie Holmes), is supposed to make him an unlikable character to the audience, as if he somehow deserves to be in this situation. His wife (Kelly Shepard, played by Radha Mitchell) is oblivious to her husband’s actions until his face appears all over the news. When a victim goes down from a gunshot wound the police show up in droves with Captain Ramey (Forest Whitaker) leading the investigation in an attempt to get Stu out of the phone booth he is trapped in.

The problem here is in keeping a guy in a phone booth interesting for an hour and a half. A faceless threatening force is not enough to accomplish this. Stu’s first interactions with the killer were nail-bitingly exciting as he was bombarded by street vendors, whores and pimps, while dealing with the fact that a rifle is aimed at his head. Once the police show up the attention-grabbing prostitutes are put on the sidelines and we are left with a poorly written character (Captain Ramey). You probably wouldn’t invite Stu over to a family meal, but certainly wouldn’t cross the street to avoid him either. My point is that Stu’s sins are not worthy of this high caliber, professional killer. Phone Booth is a much more intriguing concept if the mediocre Stu is replaced with someone who is either completely innocent of any wrongdoing or another killer. Stu doesn’t deserve this punishment, and he isn’t squeaky clean enough for us to be shocked that something like this could happen to such a nice person.

Colin Farrell (who has more movies coming out this year than Michael Jackson has had facelifts) does a fantastic job with his role. He is convincingly tormented by both the killer and his past while appearing in every scene of the movie. The only character that he gets to play off of is the telephone in his hand. Forest Whitaker is talented enough to realize that he should have stayed away from this role. His character is used as filler to give the movie a reason to last longer than its exciting half an hour and is made to utter phrases such as “your lawyer is coming down now!” to Stu when the location of the killer is found. Katie Holmes is too big for her role. Her character only has two scenes of any significance and Holmes is capable playing a much meatier role. Phone Booth is set in New York City but shot almost entirely in Los Angeles; I’m impressed by any cinematographer (in this case, Matthew Libatique) that can turn an L.A. street into gritty, grid-locked Times Square.

I have purposely left out the name of the actor portraying the killer. This knowledge makes the attempted surprise ending a waste of time, and takes away from the character’s faceless aspect, which lends much to his threat. I will say that this actor’s voice is perfect as a telephone menace, it is abrasive, and at the same time crisp.  This is probably the best-written character of the movie and he actually delivers most of the humor in Phone Booth.

Phone Booth wants to comment on media and police tactics but shies away from actually taking a stand. The only reason to make a trip for this one instead of waiting for the DVD is to see a superb actor (Farrell) who is just starting to realize his potential. If you hear a phone ringing, it is probably best left unanswered, or at least keep the call under an hour.

Rating: 2 out of 4  |  Read Review #2

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