If there is one thing Hollywood has a hard time delivering, it is a film that fulfills the promises made in previews; this is not the case with Joel Schumacher's latest release, "Phone Booth."
The film was scheduled for release last fall, but held over until Friday because the sniper shootings in Washington, D.C., struck too close to the film's plot, which features Public Relations man Stu Shepard (Colin Farrell) learning a lesson in honesty from an anonymous caller - at gunpoint.
The film is gripping and sensational, and while it is a shame that it had to be held back, it is probably going to make more waves coming out now. Instead of the sniper shootings garnering the attention, it is Colin Farrell and Forest Whitaker's performances on screen - not to mention "Lost Boy" Keifer Sutherland's smooth-as-syrup voice as the caller - that draw the viewer into "Phone Booth."
Larry Cohen ("Misbegotten") has written a screenplay that is heavy on morals and plot, but thin on characterization; all we know about Stu is that he's a jerk, while Captain Ramey (Whitaker), the policeman who tries to talk Stu out of the phone booth after a man is shot, makes several references to a previous failure in a similar situation.
The women of the film fare even worse. At the end of the film, viewers do not even see the reaction of Pamela (Katie Holmes of "Dawson's Creek") to being dropped in favor of Stu's wife, Kelly (Rahda Mitchell).
But this style of storytelling, known from television shows such as "Star Trek" as a "two people in a room" story, is a difficult one to pull off successfully. Cohen has incorporated enough characters to shift perspectives and has crafted a screenplay that, while somewhat moralistic, was directed in such a way that it is incredibly slick and entertaining.
Farrell, recently seen in "Daredevil" and "The Recruit," (and soon to play the title role in "Alexander the Great") shines in this film. During the production of "Phone Booth" he was on the cusp of stardom. Thanks to its being held over, Farrell has now appeared in three major studio releases within just a few months and it will be surprising if he does not rocket to stardom thanks to this exposure.
Yet there are points in "Phone Booth" where Farrell's performance reaches a fever pitch, only to stall. However, the most important thing about his character is how convincing he is as Stu. Viewers will have no trouble at all believing the tension in "Phone Booth" because Farrell makes evident the distress his character is experiencing. From Farrell's rude dismissal of a pizza man to his final, frenzied attempt to keep himself from being killed by the Caller, the initial tension Schumacher creates in the first few minutes of the film never dissipates.
The only thing that keeps "Phone Booth" from being a five-star film is the several moments where the script could have been polished. The several scenes come off as all-too-coincidental, leaving the audience with a taste of falseness in an otherwise great film.
