Review of Phone Booth (2003) by Rogerinho S — 21 Jun 2012

Phone Booth is a film I ignored plenty of times due to the fact that it Joel Schumacher film. It's tough to remember, but Joel once made some decent films. Films like: St. Elmo's Fire, The Lost Boys, Falling Down, A Time to Kill and The Client. Naturally that changed after Joel directed Batman and Robin, which is widely considered one of the worst films of the 90's.

Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised by this effort. Joel found somewhat of a balance between a gritty and a more commercial style and it works. Colin Ferrell stars as Stewart: the sleazy publicist who frequently uses and lies to everyone around him. Phone Booths are of course becoming a thing of the past, but Stewart finds the time to use one in the city because he doesn't the number of the woman he is having an affair with to call his cellphone. Only this time a strange man has called the pay phone to try and force Stewart to come clean on all his wrong doings.

Is "The Caller" crazy, jealous? Angry? I don't think we ever really understand his full motivations. Stewart amounts to no more than a petty small time con man taking advantage of a few people. In fact, Stewart asks the caller: "Couldn't you have picked on someone worse? Like maybe a pedophile or something?" and I found myself asking that same question. Does Stewart deserve to be pushed to tears in fear for his life for an hour and a half by a crazy sniper and some ignorant policeman?

The reality is that it works because Colin Ferrell, Kiefer Surtherland and Forest Whitaker are such great performers. The fact that they can make this sometimes silly thriller work is a credit to them. Especially Ferrell who really gives a good performance. You actually grow to sympathize with his character despite his sleazy deeds and his pathetic attempts to treat everyone around him (including The Caller)like complete idiots.

With the exception of a plot hole or two, the film is well written and pretty intense for much of it's running time. More than you would expect. So largely I was able to get past the seemingly lack of motivation The Caller had for doing the things he did. It's worth a late night watch when you don't have a lot to do.