"Phone Booth" ran into some problems in the fall. The sniper-themed film was scheduled for a Nov. 15 release until real-life sniper attacks scared studio executives into postponing it until this past weekend.
They should have just forgotten it.
The film is striking only in that it gets on your nerves. It tries - and fails - to be flashy, subjecting the audience to an onslaught of bad split-screen images which seem only an attempt to keep the very talented Colin Farrell on screen. Sure, it's obvious the young star is all the film has going for it in the first place, but the movie did not need to be so obvious about it.
The setup is pretty clean. Slimeball publicist Stu Shepard (Farrell) stops at a pay phone to call his girlfriend. When he hangs up he gets a call from a stranger who knows everything about him, from the fact he cheats on his wife to the habitual things he does from day to day. What's more, the stranger has a high powered rifle pointed at him.
Well, as you can imagine, soon there is a body in the street, trigger-happy cops surrounding the booth and a very frightened Stu talking to an unknown maniac.
It actually sounds like a cool movie, a film which could have raised some questions and brought out issues. Instead, it poses a series of unanswerable whys.
Why, for one, should we care about Farrell's character? The actor does a great job as the wholly sleazy Stu, which makes it very difficult to root for him. He is an adulterer who uses people to better himself. He rams into people in the street because he is too busy blabbing self-importance into the phone. He is a generally horrible person. Why wouldn't we want to see the so-called bad guy rid the world of him? It's not as if he is Mother Teresa. Nor is he an anti-hero. He is a protagonist without a good thing going for him and definitely somebody who would not be mourned on the screen. Yeah, he spills his guts and somehow redeems himself, but it all seems like a way to force the audience into giving a damn.
Why does the sniper know so much about Stu? He has phone numbers, he has addresses and he has more dirt on Stu than a high school permanent record. Yet his motives are muddy and his methods unexplored. The only explanation and connection offered between him and Stu is chance, but chance does not automatically give people deep insight into every detailed aspect of somebody's life, and the sniper in this film has just that. He just seems to know and has no other reason for his actions than holding a grudge against cheats. Sutherland lends his voice and does a good job, but the film goes into no detail of the sniper's life, which would undoubtedly be a better story than the one unfolding on screen.
With one person constantly on screen, it would seem there is a constant focus in "Phone Booth." Somehow, though, it manages to get lost in itself. Perhaps it is because the idea of one man in a booth is boring. They wanted to spice it up a bit. Hell, the little seen film "Tape" took place in one room and was far more exciting - and they didn't even kill anybody in that film. "Phone Booth" distracts throughout. The split-screen is annoying. There are reaction shots from people who are not at the scene and sloppy editing reigns kind.
What else would you expect from Joel Schumacher? The director exploded onto the scene in the late '80s with great flicks such as "The Lost Boys" and "Flatliners." But something changed. This is not the Schumacher who gave us the gritty social commentary "Falling Down." This the Schumacher who transformed "Batman" from a dark gothic vision to a melee of glow sticks and crotch shots (hell, it was Schumacher's "Batman Forever" which announced the arrival of nipples on the batsuit). Like the worst of his films, "Phone Booth" is overly flashy and, though mildly entertaining, decidedly dull. The director should be blacklisted.
If you liked this, you may also like: "Panic Room," David Fincher's better, though still disappointing, trapped-in-a-small-place flick.
Suggested viewing: Great for people who do not question what they are seeing.
