|
PHONE BOOTH Send This Review to a Friend
Joel Schumacher's "Phone Booth," which I caught at the Toronto International Film Festival 2002, is a well-made but gimmicky suspense film with an odd angle. Colin Farrell plays an obnoxious press agent who would lie, cheat and take advantage of anybody in his business dealings, as well as cheat on his wife. Suddenly his life is on the line.
A Times Square phone booth turns into his prison. A voice on the other end of the line tells him that if he leaves the booth he dies. There is a marksman positioned to shoot and we see his handiwork. The sniper isn't kidding.
The publicist's nasty ways are coming home to roost as his nemesis makes moral demands as the price for survival. Tension mounts steadily as the situation escalates. The problem is that one is hard-pressed to feel any sympathy for the man on the spot. He's such a louse that one doesn't care what happens despite the thriller elements. Otherwise, the film is very well done.
But one tires of the gimmickry and the shrillness of the work, which was written by Larry Cohen. Schumacher keeps a tight rein on the escalating action, but the film comes across more as a stunt than an intriguing thriller. Radha Mitchell plays the press agent's wife, and Forest Whitaker is the police officer who takes charge of the murderous situation. A Fox 2000 Pictures release.
|