The Call (2013)
TOMATOMETER
Critics Consensus: The Call builds plenty of suspense before taking a problematic turn in the third act.
Critics Consensus: The Call builds plenty of suspense before taking a problematic turn in the third act.
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Movie Info
When veteran 911 operator, Jordan (Halle Berry), takes a life-altering call from a teenage girl (Abigail Breslin) who has just been abducted, she realizes that she must confront a killer from her past in order to save the girl's life. (c) Sony- Rating:
- R (for violence, disturbing content and some language)
- Genre:
- Mystery & Suspense
- Directed By:
- Brad Anderson
- Written By:
- Nicole D'Ovidio , Jon Bokenkamp , Richard D'Ovidio
- In Theaters:
- Mar 15, 2013 Wide
- On DVD:
- Jun 25, 2013
- US Box Office:
- $51.9M
Cast
-
Halle Berry
as Jordan Turner -
Abigail Breslin
as Casey Welson -
Morris Chestnut
as Officer Paul Phillip... -
Michael Eklund
as Michael Foster -
Michael Imperioli
as Alan Denado -
David Otunga
as Officer Jake Devans
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LoginCritic Reviews for The Call
All Critics (125) | Top Critics (26) | Fresh (54) | Rotten (71) | DVD (1)
This is a cleverly made, smartly written, totally satisfying armrest-gripper.
Just when the movie has us in its grasp, the script falls to pieces and turns into a crass female-in-peril button-pusher.
Crude as it is, The Call milks its jump scares and don't-go-down-to-the-basement tension for all they're worth. See it with a full house, if you absolutely must see it at all.
Let's call The Call what it is: high quality trash that both diminishes and is redeemed by all the talents who have deigned to bring it to life.
If you're going to watch a movie in which two people talk on the phone for most of the film, it's not the worst thing in the world for one of the folks involved to have the face of Storm from the X-Men.
This is as brain-dead as a movie can be and it assumes the audience will have the I.Q. of a rutabaga.
For the first 45 minutes or so, The Call is surprisingly tense and effective. As soon as Berry leaves her desk, however, it unravels quicker than you can say "poodle perm".
It seems at odds with itself thanks to a generous helping of tropes from two distinctly different genres: fast-paced action thriller and creepy serial killer horror.
Rides completely off the rails by the finale, and the film seems to completely embrace its stupidity...
Halle Berry delivers an emphatic reminder of her star status in this tightly-plotted low-budget thriller.
Relentlessly suspenseful, this lean thriller has an emotional subtext that makes it almost unbearably involving.
The Call delivers taut no-frills thrills for two-thirds of its brisk, hour-and-half running time. But the plot falls apart spectacularly as soon as Halle leaves the 911 control room and the ludicrous finale will leave you groaning.
A film that was just highly improbable for 75 minutes loses its mind thereafter and invites you to do the same.
While plausibility is often stretched to the limit, the sense of threat will keep you on the edge of your seat, even during a ridiculously gratuitous denouement.
The familiar serial-killer flick gets a welcome shakeup, upending the woman-as-victim cliché and offering a bracing new perspective on an oft-told tale.
The Call is the kind of vaguely smart, extremely gory gloop you should watch on TV, preferably when you're tucked up in bed with a delirium-inducing fever. That way, you won't notice when the script goes bonkers.
The Call begins as a moderately effective thriller, showing us a side of the LA police we haven't seen before. Then it gets dumb. Then it gets much dumber.
Berry and Breslin make a good women-in-peril double act.
A promising picture turns into gibberish. Shame.
The story and set-up feel conceptually flawed from the get-go. This was never going to end well.
It's a neat nerve-frayer with lessons for anyone finding themselves trapped in a confined space and needing to alert the outside world.
It's the trashy premise that hooks you in.
After this unusually well-made thriller builds suspense to almost unbearable levels, the filmmakers nearly throw everything away with a gear-change so contrived that we can't help but laugh.
Smartly directed and sharply written, The Call is a suspenseful and engaging thriller with superb performances from Halle Berry and Abigail Breslin, though it stumbles a little in the final act.
It's a tense, taut thriller that only eases off the tension in the final reel.
Audience Reviews for The Call
Brad Anderson is a good director, he's just made a couple of bad decisions. The Call starts off a great thriller, a really great thriller, it just betrays itself towards the end. The same can be said for most of Anderson's films to be honest. The intensity displayed in the first half of the film is exhausting, it is compelling viewing, real edge of your seat entertainment. The problems begin when they try to explain the reasons behind why our 'Bad guy' is bad. It raises lots of unnecessary issues and handles each one poorly and leads to one of the most unsatisfying last scenes I think I've ever seen. Credit due for its highlights but with that ending I'm probably being generous with my rating.
http://cinephilecrocodile.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/the-call-dir-brad-anderson-2013-brad.html
Super Reviewer
I stopped watching on the first ten minutes when the 911 operator tells the girl to lock herself in a room and then the girl runs up the stairs. >_> I do not know which is worse, the advice or the girl.
MoreSuper Reviewer
A surprise hit last spring, The Call is a simple but rather effective thriller that wavers a bit in the end but not enough to derail your entertainment. Halle Berry stars as a 911 operator talking through a teen girl (Abigail Breslin, spending far too much time in a bra for my comfort) kidnapped in the trunk of a car. It has the hallmarks of the typical action thriller genre, namely our heroine working through her past trauma of inadvertently getting another young girl abducted by the SAME killer. The Call plays best as we think alongside our two embattled heroines, going step-by-step how to determine where she may be, what car she may be inside, and how to draw attention to her predicament. The writing is economical and fast-paced and mostly smart, having the police act like actual professionals. Director Brad Anderson (Session 9, The Machinist) employs plenty of extreme close-ups that effectively draw upon the claustrophobia and urgency. For a solid two acts, the movie seamlessly transitions form one obstacle to another. Then the third act arrives where Berry decides to leave her post and take matters into her own hands. The film becomes far more predictable, conventional, and veers into the absurdity it had avoided for so long. The creepy killer has a half-hearted creepy back-story/fetish, Berry behaves far too cavalierly when she should be notifying the cops, and the ending defies all sensible logic. It's meant to be a poetic punishment but, upon minor reflection, it's entirely possible that this loose end will come back to haunt everyone yet again. In total, The Call is a breezy, suspenseful thriller that is well-acted and directed with style (the pounding electronica score doesn't fit, though). The downturn at the end is disappointing but The Call is still a movie worth taking.
Nate's Grade: B
Super Reviewer
Enjoyable bum on the edge of seat thriller!
Greatly acted, slightly predictable but surprising ending, enjoyable and worth a watch!
Super Reviewer
The Call Quotes
- Jordan Turner:
- It's already done.
- Jordan Turner:
- What's your favorite movie?
- Casey Welson:
- Bridesmaids.
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