Phone Booth
Dir Joel Schumacher
Written by Larry Cohen
Colin Farrell, Kiefer Sutherland, Forest Whitaker, Radah Mitchell, Katie Holmes, Richard T Jones.
Stu (Farrell) is a PR wiz, who will stop at nothing to get the best for his clients, including lie, and sell stories to news outlets. He is married to Kelly (Mitchell), but having a phone affair with Pam (Holmes), who he calls from one of the last phone booths in his neighbourhood. When he gets a call from a mysterious caller (Sutherland), who knows exactly who he is and what he has done, he is held hostage – in the booth by the rifel wielding caller – and when someone is killed by the sniper, the police (Whitaker and Jones) are called in to talk Stu out of the booth.
Pretty decent thriller from the late Schumacher, who uses every minute of the very brief 80m runtime to his advantage. There are solid uses of fast speeds, as well as some fun camera angles. There is also clever use of split screen, so we see what is happening to two separate characters at the same time in different locations – which are very similar to Sutherland’s tv show 24.
The cast are all solid, with the naturally Irish Farrell doing what I thought was a pretty decent take on the Bronx accent. While there was limited time to work with, even secondary cast like Kelly and Pam are used adequately. My only complaint was that there could have been more fleshed out from the police, especially the animosity between the negotiator (James MacDonald) and Whitaker’s Captain Ramey.
The screenplay is very well done, especially considering the movie is mostly conversational based between two characters, one of whom does not even appear on screen until the last minute. Sutherland’s vocal strength is what makes this so watchable. His performance, much like what an animated movie cast would need to do, is mostly tone, and he does a great job.
The setting, which is primarily in and around the phone booth is well done, with lots of interesting camera angles as mentioned earlier. Some of the film does take place outside this though, but it is primarily within the confines of the cramped booth.
There is a tense score that underplays throughout, which at time is as fast paced as the rest of the film – it also turns quite dramatic in Stu’s final monologue/apology at the end of the film.
I really enjoyed this one, and it is very easy to watch.
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