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 I wasn't disapointed by this movie. However, it wasn't near as suspenseful as I thought it would be. The whole setting of the movie is in one place. I thought some of it was pretty funny. However, I don't think that's what the filmmakers hoped for. All and all, I don't know if I'd highly recommend this movie, but it's certainly not the worst thing out now.
Farrell plays a man on the rise. A Manhattan PR consultant, Farrell pretty much spends his time setting up parties and spreading lies about his enemies. The citywide gossip machine is at his fingertips, and the money is rolling in. Unfortunately, Farrell has a really bad attitude, treating others like dirt and consistently lying to everyone around him. This cutthroat existence is stopped cold when Farrell stops to use a phone booth near Times Square. A mysterious caller informs him that unless Farrell does pretty much everything the caller tells him to do, people are going to start dying. It becomes clear early on that the man is serious. Soon, the spectacle of a man trapped in a phone booth attracts all sorts of attention, from the media and the police. As time goes on, he is tortured by the voice, which is horribly evil and serious as hell. Their conversation forces Farrell to make some very personal revelations, which will change his life in unknown ways. Colin Farrell makes this movie with some very impressive acting. It is a tough job for him, considering he is pretty much the only visual character in the movie. He handles it very well though, as his transformation from top flight know it all to frightened child is electrifying to watch. Sutherland, or really Sutherlands voice, is positively horrifying as it adds an eerie authority to its psychopathic possessor. The other actors do a satisfactory job, when they are actually on. Director Schumacher does a good job making the Times Square area as menacing as it is immense. His 24 style cut scenes are a good fit with this taut thriller, as the viewer is forced absorb several different happenings at once. The movie does have some problems however. I found the ending and, really the reasoning behind the whole escapade as kind of lacking in impact. It was extremely morally vague and did not really fit the dramatics of the rest of the movie. But, you cannot ask for everything. Very good effort by all involved, an interesting movie in the least.
Phone Booth is the story of a man, Stu Shepard, who's a tricky PR guy and a cheating husband. When he stops in a Manhattan phone booth to call his second love (girl he's cheating with), he gets a call from an odd man. He then realizes, thanks to a red dot, that he's being pinned in the booth my a sniper. After a little inconvenice with hookers and their manager, the cops are all around, while Stu is stuck on the phone with a maniac. Phone Booth was a great film and finely crafted. Rent this movie. I dont really think the DVD is worth the money (only a commentary). This was one tense film. Enjoy
It certainly isn't the deepest of thrillers, and it has flaws in logic and presentation, but the idea behind it is a tension grabber: A man answers a phone in a phone booth only to be told that if he hangs up, he'll be shot by a gunman lurking in a nearby window. The man is Stu Shepard (Colin Farrell), an obnoxious New York press agent. Stu, who is married, regularly uses this same phone booth to call a young client and would-be girlfriend (Katie Holmes, who isn't given much to do) because he doesn't want the number to show up on his cell-phone bill. But the calls - and lives - of those who use the phone booth somehow are being monitored by a man with a vengeance (Kiefer Sutherland). Screenwriter Larry Cohen (It's Alive) has created a situation that so tense, you can overlook the thematic overreaching. Stu is forced into one double bind after another, with the Caller forcing him to make comments to his wife (Radha Mitchell) on the phone and to neighborhood strippers and cops on the street that only bolster the perception that Stu may be a gun-wielding menace. Director Joel Schumacher and Cohen keep the action taut and believable within its own self-contained world. Although the phone booth may confine Stu in uncomfortable ways, it has a liberating effect on Schumacher, who infuses his filmmaking with a no-nonsense energy to keep the story moving. The movie definitely works, holding you to that screen like poor Stu is held in that booth. At 81 minutes, "Phone Booth" is a lean, mean tension machine, setting up its premise, executing it with smarts, throwing in enough twists to keep things interesting, and wrapping it up before anyone can get fatigued or reflective. It's a smart, edgy thriller that kept this viewer glued to his seat. |
in all honesty here, when i first saw the movie trailers for this movie on the tube, i thought it was nothing more than another "hollywood" thriller not the worth the celluloid it was shot on, so i awaited for it to come out on dvd/on demand tv, well the movie starts out pretty damn good and stays that way for 2/3s of the way, and then theres the ending which feels like, well there isn't much of a bloody ending. and it is baffling because like i said a good deal of the movie is above par hollywood material(notice i mentioned hollywood, lets not get ahead of ourselves here) that actually had potential to be a good dramatic thriller, but then why a non-ending that simply doesn't measure upto what the movie coulda, shoulda, woulda been, and the sad realisation is: this was just another concept movie made to try and make some quick money, its just a shame because this one coulda been more.
It seemed to me way too artsy to be a big ticket picture. When cut down to the bone, Phone Booth is pretty much a one-man show, with little setting change or supporting characters. Definitely Greenwich Village faire. That is what I thought, but as most assumptions are, this one of mine was proved wrong. Phone Booth is a riveting thriller that portrays a very tight duel between two men who both descend into madness as the story goes on. Other characters enter the fray, but they are pretty much window dressing compared to the performances delivered by Colin Farrell and Kiefer Sutherland.
Many found that Phone Booth was boring, badly scripted, and so on. I myself (agreeing with many critics) found it to be EXTREMELY tenseful and engrossing. Once that phone call started, my heart was pounding like a beast. Joel Schumacher, the director of many films (St. Elmo's Fire, Batman & Robin), definately had a hard task of making a movie all around one phone booth. But he suceeded in bringing tons of intense moments and so forth. Colin Ferrell does a fine job of bringing the greedy Stu Shepard to life. Forest Whitaker, the cop who is dealing with the situation, did a great job in the realism of his character. He was fun to watch. Kiefer Sutherland, the sniper on the phone, was also great even though you just hear his voice.
