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Phone Booth (2003)

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Average Rating: 6.5/10
Reviews Counted: 185
Fresh: 131 | Rotten: 54

Quick pacing and Farrell's performance help make Phone Booth a tense nail-biter.

Average Rating: 6.2/10
Critic Reviews: 35
Fresh: 22 | Rotten: 13

Quick pacing and Farrell's performance help make Phone Booth a tense nail-biter.

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Average Rating: 3.1/5
User Ratings: 385,583

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Movie Info

One man's life is thrown into turmoil by picking up a telephone in this claustrophobic thriller. Stu Shepard (Colin Farrell) is a brash, cynical, and self-centered public relations man who juggles a busy career with both a wife, Kelly (Radha Mitchell), and a mistress, Pamela (Katie Holmes). Stu steps into a phone booth on a busy New York street to make a call to Pamela without Kelly being the wiser, but as soon as Stu hangs up, the phone begins to ring. Curious, Stu picks it up -- and a stranger

R, 1 hr. 20 min.

Mystery & Suspense

Directed By: Joel Schumacher

Written By: Larry Cohen

In Theaters: Apr 4, 2003 Wide

On DVD: Jul 8, 2003

Box Office:$46.5M

20th Century Fox

Raises more questions than it answers as it attempts to convince us that a moralistic sniper would torture a sleazy publicist into tears of guilt and remorse over what amounts to a few paltry, venial sins.

May 16, 2003 Full Review Source: New York Observer

| Comment (1)

Andrew Sarris

New York Observer

Top Critic

If this sounds like a Kafkaesque spoof thrown together for the annual Publicists Guild of America luncheon, Larry Cohen's script is only occasionally that clever.

April 22, 2003 Full Review Source: New York Daily News

| Comment

Jack Mathews

New York Daily News

Top Critic

The premise is admittedly a killer -- fun to think about, fun to see realized, not so fun to see screwed up in the last half-hour.

April 22, 2003 Full Review Source: Slate

| Comment

David Edelstein

Slate

Top Critic

A first-tier thriller, Phone Booth will make you think twice before you ever enter a public phone facility again, but while it curls your hair, it makes you think.

April 15, 2003 Full Review Source: New York Observer

| Comment

Rex Reed

New York Observer

Top Critic

[A] taut thriller that hooked me from the outset.

April 7, 2003 Full Review Source: Ebert & Roeper

| Comment

Richard Roeper

Ebert & Roeper

Top Critic

A superficially gritty yet soullessly slick melodrama.

April 4, 2003 Full Review Source: USA Today

| Comment

Mike Clark

USA Today

Top Critic

This movie doesn't make sense on any level.

December 27, 2010 Full Review Source: Common Sense Media

| Comments (2)

Nell Minow

Common Sense Media

The next time I hear a payphone ringing, I definitely won't pick it up.

August 10, 2009 Full Review Source: Filmcritic.com

| Comment

Blake French

Filmcritic.com

Phone Booth est un excellent suspense, mais aussi un drame psychologique qui s'aura vous divertir.

February 25, 2005 Comment

Louis-J�r�me Cloutier

Panorama

... a solid 90 minutes of well-intentioned entertainment, but it will do more to fuel urban paranoia than it will to make anybody re-examine their lives.

January 15, 2005 Comment

Jeffrey Overstreet

Looking Closer

Way beyond plausible, but mercifully short.

July 6, 2004 Full Review Source: F5 (Wichita, KS)

| Comment

Jake Euker

F5 (Wichita, KS) Source: F5 (Wichita, KS)

As pure entertainment, Phone Booth succeeds as well as any movie released in the past few years.

January 6, 2004 Full Review Source: Star-Democrat (Easton, MD)

| Comment

Greg Maki

Star-Democrat (Easton, MD)

Phone Booth is a much better movie than it has any right to be, given its absurd premise...

January 4, 2004 Full Review | Comment

Daniel M. Kimmel

Worcester Telegram & Gazette Source: Worcester Telegram & Gazette

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Audience Reviews for Phone Booth

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An entertaining fast-paced thriller concerning a slimy publicist (Colin Farrell) who gets caught in a phone booth and is forced to stay on the line with a crazed voice on the other end of the line (Kiefer Sutherland) who has threatened to kill his loved ones if he does not do exactly what he says. Without a convincing

July 2, 2007

Dan Schultz

Super Reviewer

Phone Booth is an wonderfully absurd and enertaining thiller that makes no sense, but is unrelentingly funny and packed with weird twist and turns. Joel Shumacher is much stronger when he's absurd and random, and he is here. Coin Farrell is a hapless jerk, who's held hostage in a phone booth by a sniper (Keifer

December 16, 2011

Josh Morris

Super Reviewer

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