Review of The Call (2013) by Ross H — 02 Aug 2015

Remember when Halle Berry was a promising actress after becoming the first actress of color to win an Academy Award for Best Actress? It truly feels like a long time ago, but she is an actress that has been in bad movies and the only acceptable ones being the "X-Men" films. Does "The Call" follow this trend of bad film starring Halle?

Jordan is a LAPD 911 operator who accidentally provoked the death of a teenager, is faced with an opportunity of redemption as now another teenage girl needs her help.

With the production company being WWE Studios (I´m not joking), the screenwriters being the ones responsible of the awful "Taking Lives" and "Thir13en Ghosts", and Halle Berry starring; my expectations were extremely low but "The Call" somehow managed to avoid them. "The Call" is a film that has limitations due to its somewhat low budget but is still has a cast that does the best with the material given, a screenplay that hits a lot of clichés and is extremely predictable but it's functional, Halle Berry provides a decent performance (surprising considering her recent career), Brad Anderson´s directing takes advantage of the screenplay limitations (notably the small amount of locations and the fact it's mostly characters talking through the phone) by making the execution suspenseful, the entertaining value is in adequate levels, and the pacing is adequately fast for this limited story. As you can see, all of those elements are functional, not great, as you would expect for this type of film. But then the third act begins and all the suspense is transformed into this laughable conclusion that breaks all the mediocrity entertaining values.

"The Call" is a generic, mediocre, and forgettable film that will keep you entertained throughout most of its running time.