Built on an idea so clever that even Joel Schumacher ... can't entirely botch it.
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
Nothing about Stu, in the end, is really important enough to justify the Sturm und Drang of Phone Booth or its tempest in a telecommunications teapot.
From the moment the camera zooms in on Stu striding through the streets of Manhattan making and breaking deals on his cellphone, Farrell is in charge.
A welcome departure from the usual assembly line fodder, a throwback to the days when movies were excuses to experiment with the form.
This is a slight story enlivened by good acting, crisp pacing and some graceful comic touches.
An entertaining, briskly paced little suspense piece that features some effective performances.
What keeps Phone Booth going, despite its premise, is the acting and the writing, both of which are top-notch.
Phone Booth proves to be an entertaining, tension-filled morality tale.
Powered by a hard-hitting performance from Colin Farrell, Phone Booth will keep you riveted to your seat--and make you turn that darn cell phone off, for a little while at least.
A tight, suspenseful, compelling movie that may very well revolutionize the action film genre.
Does a decent job of giving us the creeps until drizzling out toward the end.
Like most Schumacher movies, Phone Booth rings loudly but is disconnected from the real world.
An honest edge-of-your-seat thriller that banks on precise pacing, a smart script and even smarter acting. It’s the type of film Alfred Hitchcock made.
Despite an eye-roller of an obligatory "emotional melt-down/confession" scene, Colin Farrell is the reason to see this movie.
Schumacher keeps the suspense building at such a fast pace that there's little time to pick holes in the plot while the action unfolds.
It's surreal, at times totally far-fetched, but as a weird Twilight Zone-y tale, this short, taut trip keeps you hanging on.
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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