Review of Phone Booth (2003) by Martin D — 02 Mar 2010

A fiendish publicist finds himself being held hostage in a phone booth by an extreme moralist who watches his victim's every move through the scope of his high-power sniper rifle, while speaking to the publicist via the phone booth. The caller prides himself on using force to punish corrupt people by forcing them to admit all of their lies and sins through mental games, or killing them. At the same time, he eliminates other people as well; everyday people who are guilty of brutal dishonesty and/or corruption, such as a murderous street pimp and a pushy pizza man (all of which, if you look hard enough in the film, have a guilt link). The caller himself is corrupt, and uses it defeat other corruption. It is evil fighting evil in the phone booth. The movie starts off with a 50's jingle called "Operator" and the camera zooms in from outer space and satellites into New York City. As the jingle ends, the narrator explains a lot of interesting facts about phones and New Yorkers. I don't remember the specifics but something like 3 million have cell phones and how talking to yourself was once a sign of insanity but now it's a status symbol. It's a good introduction.

The camera focuses on Stu Shepherd (Colin Farell). He is walking and talking. His assistant is busy dialing on ANOTHER cell phone and he struggles to keep up to the confidently strutting Stu.

Stu is a publicist and it's basically his job to spew B.S. to his celebrity clients and the press. At one point Stu calls one of his clients, a white rapper sitting between two big black bodyguards. Whitey looks like he is 15 years old and is saying ridiculous stuff like "I'm a gangster! Yo Yo" The bodyguards just look at each other wondering "What the hell happened to me?" Anyway this part isn't real important. His celebrity clients have problems and by the first five minutes Stu seems to have solved all of them by planning a banquet for Whitey and in turn getting press for the restaurant holding the banquet and bribing a Page 6 columnist with juicy info about a producer's wife in rehab that Stu got from a police officer by bribing him with Britney tickets. Yeah O.K. Anyway Stu ditches his young assistant telling him to get a decent suit if he wants to be a publicist.