The best way to describe Phone Booth is preposterous but entertaining.
Phone Booth (2003)
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Reviews Counted:182
Fresh:130
Rotten:52
Average Rating:6.6/10
Consensus: Quick pacing and Farrell's performance help make Phone Booth a tense nail-biter.
Rated: R [See Full Rating] for pervasive language and some violence
Runtime: 1 hr 42 mins
Genre: Dramas
Theatrical Release:Apr 4, 2003 Wide
Box Office: $46,524,362
Synopsis:
Red-hot superstar Colin Farrell ("Daredevil," "The Recruit") toplines the thriller PHONE BOOTH, from director Joel Schumacher. A phone call can change your life, but for one man it can also end it....
Red-hot superstar Colin Farrell ("Daredevil," "The Recruit") toplines the thriller PHONE BOOTH, from director Joel Schumacher. A phone call can change your life, but for one man it can also end it. Set entirely within and around the confines of a New York City phone booth, PHONE BOOTH follows Stu Shepard (Colin Farrell), a low-rent media consultant who is trapped after being told by a caller - a serial killer with a sniper rifle - that he'll be shot dead if he hangs up.
What do you do when you hear a ringing public phone? You know it's a wrong number, but instinct forces you to pick it up. A ringing phone demands to be answered, but when Stu Shepard takes the call, he finds himself hurtled into a tortuous game. Hang up, says the caller (Kiefer Sutherland), and Stu's a dead man.
A sudden and shocking act of violence near the booth draws the attention of the police, who arrive backed with a small army of sharpshooters. They believe that Stu, not the unseen caller of whom they remain unaware, is the dangerous man with a gun.
The senior officer on the scene, Captain Ramey (Forest Whitaker), tries to talk Stu out of the booth. But unbeknownst to Ramey, his team, the media circus that has flocked to the site - and Stu's wife, Kelly, and his client /prospective girlfriend, Pamela - the caller has them all in his high-powered rifle sights.
As afternoon turns into evening, Stu, the embodiment of an unethical, self-serving existence, must now undertake a sudden and unexpected moral evolution. He is emotionally stripped naked by the caller. Stu's lies, half-truths, and obfuscation no longer matter. Instead, he must dig deep into his soul, find his strength and attempt to outwit the caller, taking the game to an even more dangerous level. -- © Fox
Starring: Colin Farrell, Forest Whitaker, Kiefer Sutherland, Katie Holmes
Starring: Colin Farrell, Forest Whitaker, Kiefer Sutherland, Katie Holmes, Radha Mitchell, Tia Texada, Richard T. Jones
Director: Joel Schumacher
Director: Joel Schumacher
Screenwriter: Larry Cohen
Producer: David Zucker, Gil Netter
Composer: Harry Gregson-Williams
Studio: 20th Century Fox
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Reviews for Phone Booth
Colin Farrell. Joel Schumacher... Will hot, new, and sexy rise to the top or will the forces of old, bloated, and boring rise up and swallow the young talent?
Phone Booth exists to demonstrate that Colin Farrell can carry a movie ... good to know, I guess, but. .. superfluous information for anyone who’s had the good fortune to catch the under-seen Tigerland.
I wanted to call up director Joel Schumacher and say, 'One word: Flashbacks!' OK, I also wanted to say, 'Before Katie rushes down to the phone booth, don't you think she should take a long, hot shower?' But I didn't have his number.
An efficient and effective thriller, it does for phone booths what Speed did for buses, turning them into very scary places.
May have worked better as an 80s parable or with Larry Cohen behind the camera but it gets the juices pumping nonetheless.
Interesting, contemporary, thought-provoking and above all entertaining in a smart way
A devilishly fun film, full of juicy performances, unrelenting tension, and a sense of unpredictability that lasts right up to the very end.
Farrell is a dynamo. And Kiefer Sutherland, whose sniper role is essentially a voice on the phone, matches Farrell subtle shift for subtle shift.
A flick that will absolutely keep your rump glued to the seat for 90-some minutes and force you from the theater discussing the fun you just had. And in my book that's always worth 8 bucks.
An impressive genre entertainment -- forgettable but gripping; slight but deadly.
after making a truly excellent film, Joel Schumacher has redeemed himself.a solid character piece to the action genre, and I can’t wait to see this film again.
Essentially B-movie material jacked up to a hysterical pitch by Joel Schumacher.
For a straightforward, populist popcorn movie, you could do a lot worse than this. It's a clean, effective thriller.
The stratagems that compel the film to stay put are as improbable as they are illogical.
Latest News for Phone Booth
July 20, 2007:
Larry Cohen Plans Remakes of It's Alive, Black Caesar, and The Stuff
Long before he wrote movies like "Phone Booth," "Cellular," and (ugh) "Captivity," filmmaker Larry Cohen was making horror movies about killer babies. And (guess what?) he just... More...
February 07, 2007:
Joel Schumacher Wants to Direct Neil Gaiman's "Sandman"???
At last year's Comic Con, writer/artist Neil Gaiman said "I'd rather no Sandman movie got made than [to have] a bad Sandman movie." And now comes word that director... More...
January 19, 2006:
Critical Consensus: "Spear," "New World" Are OK, Not Great
This week at the movies brings us three culture clashes: Native Americans and Europeans ("The New World"), the Waodani people of Ecuador and a group of missionaries... More...
May 09, 2005:
Elisha Cuthbert Bound for "Captivity"
Variety brings news of the currently young and hot Elisha Cuthbert's next big role. Only a few days removed from the opening of her "House of Wax," Ms. Cuthbert has... More...
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