Superman
can't find a phone booth anymore, but somehow Colin Farrell
can. And unfortunately for him, he visits that same booth
with such regularity that a madman with a moral agenda and
a rifle can pinpoint him for an eighty minute mindgame. If
you can get past that implausibility (okay, and about a half-dozen
others), Phone Booth proves to be a tense thriller,
just not one as important as it thinks it is.
In movie
terms, it's one bankable high concept. And indeed, the script
by Larry Cohen was a hot commodity a couple of years ago.
Cheap to shoot, with a juicy leading role for any decent actor
with a decent ego, both Will Smith and Jim Carrey considered
it, as well as a variety of hot directors.
Somehow,
Joel Schumacher ended up helming it, with his personal It
Boy Farrell in the lead. Though good at pacing, as a director,
Schumacher has never met a simple script he couldn't tart
up. The heart of what made Phone Booth attractive remains,
but it sure has to fight its way through a lot of unnecessary
glitz.
To make
the film more universal, Schumacher starts in the outer reaches
of the atmosphere, traveling from a telecommunications satellite
down to a bustling city. Nothing like the global perspective
to give us the touch of the common man.
Out of
the din, we pick out Stu Shephard (Farrell), an obnoxious
publicity agent with a strange Brooklyn brogue. Treating everyone
around him with barely veiled contempt, he stops to make a
phone call that may change his life.
Every
day, he uses the same phone booth to call a client, Pamela
(Katie Holmes), and try to seduce her into a hotel room tryst.
Why use a phone booth? Because Stu's wife (Radha Mitchell)
checks the cell phone bill.
And then
the weirdness starts to topple like dominoes. A pizza guy
delivers a pizza to Stu in the phone booth. The phone rings.
On the other end, the crushed velvet voice of Kiefer Sutherland,
making all kinds of veiled threats.
Though
Stu hangs up, he can't resist answering the phone a second
time. (Why? Because we'd have no movie without it, you fools.)
Then the game gets dangerous, as his unknown caller proves
to be a crack shot.
The rules
of the game are simple. Stu cannot tell anyone what's happening,
but must not hang up. For some reason, the caller wants Stu
to confess his attempted peccadillo to his wife, or a bullet
will pierce his heart.
As proof
that he means business, the caller confesses to two earlier
high-profile assassinations, of a child pornographer and the
CEO of an Enron-like company. Compared to that, thinking about
sleeping with Katie Holmes seems pretty low on the list of
sins, but there you go. All of us at Fanboy Planet now must
fear a sniper's bullet.
Eventually
the cast of characters grows to include the police, led by
Forest Whitaker. They're slow but good-hearted. Though they
never question how a street pimp could possibly have been
shot in the back by Stu while facing him, Whitaker's
Captain Ramey susses out that all is not what it seems.
To tell
the story and keep the focus on Farrell's sweaty but finely
chiseled face, Schumacher pulls a lot of tricks from the director's
bag. The one with the most varied effect is the old sixties
standby of the split screen. Often he turns it into a variation
of picture-in-picture, which adds to our sensation of being
voyeurs. Is that creepy judgmental voice of Sutherland actually
the one in our own heads?
But for
a lot of scenes, Schumacher arbitrarily turns up the effects,
proving that he can be an artist. Let's repeat this bit of
advice, though. Just because you can do something,
doesn't mean you should do it. (See earlier Schumacher
example: Just because you can put nipples on the Batsuit
doesn't mean you should.)
The CG
effects take away from the personal element of the story,
and the arty washes used constantly remind us this is only
a movie. Without them, we might be able to get completely
swept up and forget all the plot mistakes. (The third act
completely hinges upon Stu being able to do something that
earlier on, it's established he can't.)
The script
itself only touches upon depth, being more concerned with
just providing a good ride. In a clever turn, the caller runs
through a litany of motivations for onscreen killers, ultimately
exposing them all for the clichés they are. When the film
tries for a heavier message, it just sort of peters away,
perhaps because of the over-flashy direction and editing.
All the
performances are earnest. Farrell has enough intensity to
hold the screen, and though Sutherland's voice has clearly
been dubbed in after the fact (he replaced Ron Eldard after
the shoot), he delivers an incredibly effective performance.
However, both actresses, while comely, could have been replaced
by the proverbial wooden puppets. It's not their fault - this
is a movie about two men, and their sense of responsibility
towards society at large.
Had Phone
Booth seen its original November release (delayed because
of the real sniper shootings), it might have been lost in
the holiday crowd. But with nothing else of much substance
out right now, it has a chance at catching your interest,
and maybe a better one than it deserves.
