Phone Booth Review
by Richard A. Zwelling (razwee AT yahoo DOT com)April 14th, 2003
PHONE BOOTH
*** (out of ****)
a film review by
Richard A. Zwelling
I must say that I am not the biggest Joel Schumacher fan. I have been watching films for a long time, and I have seen Schumacher turn out several unforgettable pictures (e.g. --The Client, 8MM, Bad Company). While the premise of Phone Booth intrigued me, I was keeping myself slightly wary, as it might well be the case that the film would join the list of shame. I am happy to report that this did not happen. In fact, of all the releases from 2003 that I have seen thus far (and I freely admit that there are not many), this was the most enjoyable.
There are moments of Phone Booth that invite rumination on such issues as the media and individualism as corrupting forces in American society, but overall, this is a movie with much more flash and flair than brains. And that is ok. Schumacher's direction is surprisingly effective in creating tension that mounts exponentially, despite the fact that for most of the movie, we never traverse beyond the immediate surroundings of a phone booth on the corner of a busy Manhattan intersection. The action is masterfully shot by cinematographer Matthew Libatique, whose resume includes the visually arresting films of Darren Aronofsky (Pi and Requiem for a Dream), and there are only a handful of shots that I can recall that lasted more than a few seconds.
How, you ask, can a film possibly stay interesting if confined to a phone booth? A screenwriting professor of mine once said that good stories essentially arise from conflict, and that often times, the way to keep your viewers hooked is by making things increasingly difficult for the protagonist as the story moves along, thus accentuating the conflict. This is the perfect adage through which to describe the way in which Phone Booth holds the viewer's interest.
Stuart "Stu" Shepard (Colin Farrell) is a complete jerk. He is an up-and-coming publicist whose main concerns are the quality of his clothes and accessories, the high status of his clients, and his own over-inflated self-image. At the start of the film, we see him (and everyone else on New York's busy streets) talking on cell phones (yes, Stuart himself has more than one).
But every day, at the exact same time, Stuart enters a phone booth to place calls to Pamela (Katie Holmes), a client who he has been romantically interested in for some time. His reason for the phone booth call? He's married. And he knows that his wife, Kelly (Radha Mitchell), will be none the wiser if no mysterious calls appear on his monthly cell phone statement.
Someone, however, doesn't care very much for Stuart's unscrupulous actions, and this someone lets him know it immediately after he hangs up the phone with Pamela. For the remainder of the film, Stuart remains confined to the booth at the whim of his unknown captor. I will remain silent as to how Stuart is kept inside the booth and as to what transpires. Needless to say, things become increasingly more drastic.
In the lead role, Colin Farrell is outstanding. He perfectly captures the egotistical, self-serving persona at the start of the film and effectively lets it give way to irrepressible fear and paranoia as his captor draws him further into his sadistic game. Attach this role onto his growing list of notable performances (he was the most enjoyable part of the disappointing Daredevil and was very successful in sporting an American accent in Minority Report).
All of the supporting performances are adequate, but the only truly noteworthy one is Forest Whitaker as a police officer who appears midway through the film. There is also the cameo role of the captor himself, which I will be gracious enough not to reveal, although some critics have annoyingly taken it upon themselves to divulge his identity.
For pure action-packed, suspense-filled fun, Phone Booth is a definite success. It is most certainly not deep, thought-provoking cinema, but it is done with much more inventiveness than the explosion-riddled schlock of today's cookie-cutter action flicks. Word of warning: if you bring a cell phone, be careful. After the movie, I was reluctant to reach for mine at all.
Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
