S Club Seeing Double
A media consultant gets the urge to answer a ringing phone in a New York City phone booth--and soon desperately wishes he'd passed it by instead.
Story
As Phone Booth not-so-subtly points out, most folks these days spend a great deal of time on the phone--so much so that the compulsion to answer even a random ringing phone is sometimes just too hard to pass up. Such is the fate of one Stu Shepard (Colin Farrell), a smooth-talking PR rep, who revels in his self-serving, unethical existence. He prefers to wheel and deal on his cell phone while pacing the streets of New York but uses a public phone booth for the calls he doesn't want wife Kelly (Radha Mitchell) to find out about, like the special one he wants to make to Pam (Katie Holmes), a wannabe actress he's trying to get in the sack. Yet, on this particular afternoon, the pay phone rings--and being the phone junkie he is, Stu answers it. Biiiig mistake. The caller turns out to be a serial killer with a sniper rifle who tells Stu he'll be shot dead if he hangs up the phone. Of course, Stu thinks it's a sick joke at first, but after the sniper kills someone near the booth, Stu is suddenly thrust into a hellish game of cat and mouse with the unseen gunman. Eventually, the police arrive, led by senior officer Captain Ramey (Forest Whitaker), who first mistake Stu for the crazy shooter. Soon, however, Ramey, his team, Kelly and even Pam become ensnared in the sniper's web--and only Stu can save them by digging deep into his soul and coming clean, ultimately outwitting the killer at his own game.
Acting
That this is pretty much a one-man show is a given--and Farrell bears the weight of it on his shoulders quite well. The Irish actor has a certain reckless-yet-oh-so-vulnerable approach towards his craft, which he uses to full benefit in Phone Booth. Stu goes from cocky bravado to gut-wrenching defenselessness in one fell swoop and even though his character's dialogue gets heavy-handed about what a schmuck he has been, Farrell manages to make it all believable. As the sniper, Kiefer Sutherland is menacing and sardonic as he goads Stu into his confessions, but the baddie never comes off as evil as you would like him to be. Of the supporting players, only Whitaker stands out as the police captain who is thankfully a lot smarter than he first appears to be. Holmes and Mitchell, on the other hand, have the tedious tasks of playing ''the women'' and neither are able to rise above their thankless parts.
Direction
Phone Booth had some difficulties making it to the big screen. Originally, From Hell's Allan and Albert Hughes were attached to direct with a varying list of A-list actors attached to star at different times, including Will Smith and Jim Carrey. Eventually, the film fell into director Joel Schumacher's lap in 2000, and (after Carrey dropped out) he cast newcomer Farrell, with whom the director had just worked in Tigerland. Twentieth Century Fox at last was able to set a November 2002 release date--but then came the horrifying real-life events last October where two snipers in the Washington, D.C., area randomly killed several people, and the studio decided to postpone the release due to those sensitive circumstances. Now that the film is finally coming out, the wait seems to have paid off since a) Farrell has become a bona-fide star in the meantime with The Recruit and Daredevil under his belt, and b) Phone Booth is just as fresh and visually stimulating as if it was made yesterday. Schumacher shot the film in 10 days because he knew he had to pull out all the stops to sell the concept of having the action revolve around one guy standing in a phone booth. The result is an excellent fast-paced film which uses a split-screen style to tell the story--and keep the movie's--and the audience's--adrenaline pumping throughout.
Bottom Line
Powered by a hard-hitting performance from Colin Farrell, Phone Booth will keep you riveted to your seat--and make you turn that darn cell phone off, for a little while at least.