Directed by:
Joel SchumacherScreenplay:
Larry CohenCinematography:
Matthew LibatiqueComposer:
Harry Gregson-WilliamsCast:
Colin Farrell, Kiefer Sutherland, Forest Whitaker, Radha Mitchell, Katie Holmes, Paula Jai Parker, Tia Texada, John Enos III, Richard T. Jones, Keith Nobbs (more)Plots(1)
A wannabe hotshot entertainment publicist who's more intent on posturing for his unpaid assistant than he is in actually working, Stu Shepherd (Colin Farrell) ducks into a phone booth to make his regular afternoon call to his girlfriend (Katie Holmes). Stu stops in the same phone booth at the same time every day to flirt with the young girl, who does not know that Stu is happily married with no intention of dating her seriously. When Stu says goodbye to his girl and sets down the receiver, he picks up a call from a threateningly sarcastic man with a deep voice. This man seems to have been tracking Stu's visits to this booth every day, and suddenly Stu knows that his secrets are no longer his own. Soon, the caller identifies himself as a sniper and begins shooting. Police are called in, and Stu must use his PR skills in a final test to get out of the booth, alive. (official distributor synopsis)
(more)Videos (1)
Reviews (12)
I remember standing outside the theater, debating if a movie mostly set in a phone booth was worth the ticket. I ended up skipping it, but after watching it on DVD at home, I regretted not going. This is a brilliantly intense thriller packed with emotion, all driven by Colin Farrell’s excellent performance.
()
Even after watching this film twenty times, it's still an inventive, clever, and suspenseful thriller where Joel Schumacher, constrained by budget and shooting days, lets the entire weight of the plot be carried by the polished dialogue of the Farrell-Sutherland pair. For this, the biggest thanks go to Larry Cohen, who did have some mistakes and logical question marks in the script, but the witty social criticism together with the escalation of the plot reliably carries the film for the entire 70-minute runtime.
()
Yeah, when the phone rings in the booth nearby again, I can't even imagine going to pick it up... or can I? Joel Schumacher's film meets all the criteria of an "intelligent" thriller. Minimalist design, great acting (especially the rebirth of narcissist Farella is a delicacy!), interesting work with images (the twisting of shots increases the tension and gradient), decent music and especially a solidly written screenplay which, with a minimum of resources, escalates the absurdity and horror of the situation in which the hostage of the voice on the phone finds himself. I could probably do without tacky and theatrical ending. All in all, it's not a movie that I get overly excited about, but I certainly recommend watching it on movie night for sure...
()
How much does each of us hide? How much do we pretend in front of others and what will we do when we are exposed? What if his threats are not empty and the secret he reveals won't be the end of it? How quickly are we able to reassess our highest priorities when it comes to life, not just for ourselves, but also for those closest to us? It was a perfectly delicious pizza, and you're certainly going to wish you had accepted it.... Colin Farrell's perfect performance and the brilliant voice acting of the sniper in a film, which at the time had absolutely no competition. Even many subsequent screenings cannot change the fact that Joel Schumacher and Larry Cohen had surpassed themselves forever.
()
KIEFER RULES! The main star in this inventive thriller for me is not the great Colin Farrell, but the absolutely perfect voice performance of Keifer Shuterland. I wouldn’t want to see this film dubbed. And I also wonder how the video distributors will handle it when converting it to VHS format. Schumacher divides the screen into several windows in which we see the plot running simultaneously from different locations. It's nothing new, but I like this method often used in the 1960s.
()
Ads