Review of Phone Booth (2003) by Jonny P — 02 Oct 2014

Larry Cohen originally pitched this idea to Alfred Hitchcock in the 1960s, but they couldn't come up with a good reason why someone would be trapped in the phone booth. Nearly 30 years later, Cohen came up with that reason, with publicist/hustler Colin Farrell answering a street pay phone that's ringing and then finds himself trapped there by a sniper who forces Farrell to not just stay in the booth but to also do all sorts of unpleasant actions (mostly involving him disclosing some facts involving his wife and his mistress, Radha Mitchell and Katie Holmes), or else the sniper will shoot him or others he cares for around him.

Kiefer Sutherland is great as the voice on the other end of the phone, giving a performance full of scary menace without having hardly any onscreen time. Forest Whitaker plays a detective who shows up on the scene when it becomes a standoff situation.

Where the film falters, besides the fact that there phone booths really didn't exist much anymore in 2002, is the 1970s style street people stereotypical characters and over direction by Joel Schumacher, bringing unnecessary stylistics to a film that didn't need them.

The dialogue between Sutherland and Farrell (who is also terrific) is more than enough to sustain the film. Sure, you need to keep a film visually interesting that take place almost entirely in one location, but I think Schumacher took it further than needed.

If the film had had more a William Friedkin 70s gritty style, I think the film would have much stronger. Still, it's a smart, suspenseful film that I really did not know how it was going to end, which is more than I can say for most Hollywood thrillers.