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Movies / On DVD / Phone Booth
Phone Booth

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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 [More]

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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Release:

Jul 8, 2003

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Reviews for Phone Booth

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81 - 100 (sorted by date)
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This is the kind of thriller I most enjoy seeing - one that really pulls me in, makes me feel the danger, and keeps me thinking on my way out the door.

Full Review Source: Aisle Seat | comment Comment
04/06/03
Mike McGranaghan
Mike McGranaghan
Aisle Seat

Phone Booth is a subversively dandy escapist flick that uses its confinement and crassness as its wickedly hysterical calling card...won’t leave anybody disconnected from its action-packed gaudiness.

Full Review Source: Movie Eye | comment Comment
04/05/03
Frank Ochieng
Frank Ochieng
Movie Eye

I, for one, will never answer a pay phone again.

Full Review Source: EricDSnider.com | comment Comment
04/05/03
Eric D. Snider
Eric D. Snider
EricDSnider.com

The more information I got about Stu's bad character, the less I cared whether he lived or died.

Full Review Source: San Diego Metropolitan | comment Comment
04/05/03
Jean Lowerison
Jean Lowerison
San Diego Metropolitan

Click to read the article

Full Review Source: Journal News (Westchester, NY) | comment Comment
04/05/03
Marshall Fine
Marshall Fine
Journal News (Westchester, NY)

Taut and witty, in terms of direction as well as dialogue.

Full Review Source: Film Journal International | comment Comment
04/05/03
Rex Roberts
Rex Roberts
Film Journal International

An exciting film with great acting that tells a gripping morality fable? And Schumacher did this without putting Colin in a latex Batman outfit? The audience wins on this one.

Full Review Source: Film Snobs | comment Comment
04/05/03
Jimmy O
Jimmy O
Film Snobs

The problem with Schumacher’s direction is that while he keeps the suspense taut, he fails to utilize or heighten the danger and, most importantly, the claustrophobia, of the situation.

Full Review Source: Journal and Courier (Lafayette, IN) | comment Comment
04/05/03
Bob Bloom
Bob Bloom
Journal and Courier (Lafayette, IN)

More of a stunt than a fully-developed motion picture, but it is nonetheless pulled off with an engrossing flair.

Full Review Source: DustinPutman.com | comment Comment
04/04/03
Dustin Putman
Dustin Putman
DustinPutman.com

One of those intimate and tense urban-standoff dramas of the sort that helped make the 1970s a landmark period in American film.

Full Review Source: Orlando Weekly | comment Comment
04/04/03
Steve Schneider
Steve Schneider
Orlando Weekly

A superficially gritty yet soullessly slick melodrama.

Full Review Source: USA Today | comment Comment
04/04/03
Mike Clark
Mike Clark
USA Today
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

The payoff doesn't quite equal the intensity of the spectacularly squirm-inducing premise, but Farrell takes his showboating star turn and runs with it.

Full Review Source: TV Guide's Movie Guide | comment Comment
04/04/03
Maitland McDonagh
Maitland McDonagh
TV Guide's Movie Guide

Anyone inclined to argue with the logic of the story -- and there's certainly much to argue about -- is advised to just sit back and watch how Farrell's Stu unravels before our eyes.

Full Review Source: Toronto Star | comment Comment
04/04/03
Peter Howell
Peter Howell
Toronto Star
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

It's cinematic flash, tarted up with gritty gray-blue lighting and gimmicky photography.

Full Review Source: Seattle Times | comment Comment
04/04/03
Moira MacDonald
Moira MacDonald
Seattle Times

While intriguing and even engaging for a while, the effort runs out of gas and real estate far too soon.

Full Review Source: Screen It! | comment Comment
04/04/03
Jim Judy
Jim Judy
Screen It!

A movie that combines a seriousness of purpose with an impish delight in craft, in a way Hitchcock would have appreciated.

Full Review Source: San Francisco Chronicle | comment Comment
04/04/03
Mick LaSalle
Mick LaSalle
San Francisco Chronicle
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Not even Whitaker's bearish bulk and weight of truth can put much meat on the concept bones of Phone Booth.

Full Review Source: San Diego Union-Tribune | comment Comment
04/04/03
David Elliott
David Elliott
San Diego Union-Tribune

Its plot ... not only fully exploits Schumacher's strengths as a filmmaker but also has encouraged the director to keep things atypically simple.

Full Review Source: Sacramento Bee | comment Comment
04/04/03
Joe Baltake
Joe Baltake
Sacramento Bee

At its core is a remarkable performance by Farrell, and the hot young Irish actor finally gets an appropriate showcase for his much-vaunted talents.

Full Review Source: Rochester Democrat and Chronicle | comment Comment
04/04/03
Jack Garner
Jack Garner
Rochester Democrat and Chronicle

A movie that loves to torture people for the sake of torturing them.

Full Review Source: Philadelphia Daily News | comment Comment
04/04/03
Gary Thompson
Gary Thompson
Philadelphia Daily News
 
 
81 - 100 (sorted by date)
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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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