Gripping in parts, tedious in others, the film works best when the action is brisk.
Phone Booth (2003)
Tomatometer
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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
While director Joel Schumacher has crafted a vigorously paced and moderately efficient thriller, it's hard to imagine who will be entertained by such a sorry spectacle in our current times of trouble.
Farrell delivers a tour de force in this clever cross between Sweet Smell of Success and Dog Day Afternoon.
This whole flick gives off a certain musty odour -- it's meant to be now but it sure doesn't smell that way.
A tense little sketch of a movie that catches you in a vise grip of tension and trickery.
The movie's so hung up (pardon) on its gimmick it never transcends it.
In the end, it is Farrell’s performance that makes the movie worthwhile.
The movie is Farrell's to win or lose, since he's onscreen most of the time, and he shows energy and intensity.
It's really more a gimmick than a movie, but it hammers you flat the whole way through.
Schumacher executes this psychological thriller with a brilliant, cold precision not seen since Francis Ford Coppola’s 1974 The Conversation.
The tension keeps building, creating an 'edge of the seat' experience...and that's no easy accomplishment - when you basically know what's going to happen.
Quick, dirty, and economical, with an on-the-fly energy that Hollywood films rarely evince these days.
At the core, a gimmick movie, but if all gimmick movies were as well-executed as this, I'd have little reason to complain about them -- ever.
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...
| Tomatometer Percentage | Movie |
|---|---|
| 66% 66% | Public Enemies |
| 83% 83% | Harry Potter and the H… |
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| 75% 75% | Julie & Julia |
| 32% 32% | Terminator Salvation |
| Tomatometer Percentage | Movie |
|---|---|
| 88% 88% | Inglourious Basterds |
| 78% 78% | The Hangover |
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| 47% 47% | The Girl From Monaco |
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