Phone Booth
(2002)
review by Head Cheeze

"Isn't it funny. You hear a phone ring, and it could be anybody. But a ringing phone has to be answered, doesn't it?"

And with those words, Stu Shepard (Farrell) becomes the captive audience of one for a serial sniper in Joel Schumacher's exhilarating Phone Booth.

Shepard is a con-man/publicist living the high life on low income and coasting on a wave of lies and broken promises in his bid to hide his Brooklyn roots with metro highlights. Stu makes his daily rounds, lining up interviews, greasing clients, and, his special stop, a visit to a phone booth from which he calls Pam (Katie Holmes), an aspiring actress that Stu aspires to bed. When Stu unconsciously picks up the ringing phone in the booth, he hears the voice of the man (Sutherland) who will from this point on command his immediate and undivided attention. You see, the caller has a sniper rifle fixed on Stu, and unless Stu plays ball, he's a dead man. What follows is a fairly one-sided game of cat and mouse, where Stu must abide by the demands of the sniper, or he loses the game.

Based on a nearly twenty year old idea from writer Larry Cohen (Maniac Cop, The Stuff) Phone Booth is one of the most entertaining and downright nerve rattling thrillers in years. Playing out in real time, with a fully realised sense of urgency I've not seen since The Taking of Pelham 123, Cohen's words are masterfully brought to life by director Joel Schumacher, who, with this film, has erased all of my Batman-based doubts of this man's skills. Utilizing split screens, picture and picture and gleefully disorienting points of view, Schumacher's slice of New York real estate crackles with vibrant intensity and a genuine sense that we are there, sharing the glass cell with Stu.

Colin Farrell is quite simply one of the most promising actors of our generation, and continues on the hot streak he started with Schumacher's Tigerland, delivering a nakedly honest portrayal of a sleazey fast talking hipster who is unwittingly on the road to redemption. Countering the brilliant visual performance is Kiefer Sutherland's voicing of the sniper. If there's an award out there for best performance off-screen, Sutherland deserves it and then some. He delivers his lines with a cold, giddy precision that is chilling and nothing short of amazing. The pair square off in what is essentially a one act morality play that would have been just as at home on the stage as it is on film, and Schumacher plays it conservatively, letting these two dynamic characters carry the film along to it's satisfying conclusion.

At a lean 80 minutes, Phone Booth is a surgical strike of a film that leaves fatty exposition and needless characterization by the wayside, in favour of a full on assault on the viewer that leaves you as frazzled and spent as it does entertained.

The DVD from Fox features the film in both widescreen and fullscreen versions, both bolstered by a magnificent transfer and 5.1 Dolby mix. I watched a few choice moments in fullscreen, and it amazes me that anyone would want to see this film in that ratio seeing as how Schumacher has framed the film. So much visual information is cut, and the pan and scan and image squeezing is glaringly obvious. Since Phonebooth wasn't a huge box-office hit, it didn't make financial sense to make two separate versions of the film, so the fullscreen version occupies a whole lotta space that could've been used for supplemental materials. Sadly, Fox hasn't much of a choice since there are a good chunk of folks out there who wouldn't buy the film if this option wasn't available. So while the extras are limited, there is a full running commentary by Schumacher in which the director gives us enough information about the making of the film that a behind the scenes documentary or interviews aren't so sorely missed.

Phonebooth has been alternately praised and maligned for it's rather simple premise, but I have nothing but the former for this crackling gem of a film.