director
Joel Schumacher
screenwriter
Larry Cohen
producers
Gil Netter
David Zucker
cinematographer
Matthew Libatique
music
Harry Gregson-Williams
editor
Mark Stevens
cast
Colin Farrell (Stu Shepard)
Kiefer Sutherland (The Caller)
Forest Whitaker (Capt. Ramey)
Radha Mitchell (Kelly Shepard)
Katie Holmes (Pamela McFadden)
Paula Jai Parker (Felicia)
Arian Ash (Corky)
Tia Texada (Asia)
John Enos III (Leon)
Richard T. Jones (Sergeant Cole)
mpaa rating: R
running
time: 81m
u.s.
release: April 4, 2003
video
availability: VHS -
DVD
official
website
other joel
schumacher films
reviewed on this website:
- batman
forever
- batman
and robin
- 8mm
- falling
down
- a
time to kill
- veronica
guerin
|
I happened to see Phone
Booth on Roger Corman's 77th birthday, and chances are that
the old B-movie skinflint would heartily approve of the movie.
Corman, of course, is the guy who shot an entire film -- Little
Shop of Horrors -- in just over two days; the director of
Phone Booth, Joel Schumacher, brought his movie home in
ten days and brings it in at a snappy 81 minutes. I doubt Corman
would've spent as much money on extras playing cops (he would've
had about twelve cops, and hired Dick Miller to play eight of
them), but we can't have everything.
File the following under Things
I Never Dreamed I'd Say: I had a fine time with this movie directed
by Joel Schumacher. This formerly glitz-addicted and hype-addled
filmmaker (the two worst Batman
movies, A
Time to Kill, etc.) has been gesturing towards smaller,
grittier fare of late; 8mm
(1999) repulsed me so much I skipped his next two, Tigerland
and Flawless, which seemed like honest enough attempts
at something different, though Schumacher had to go and make
Bad Company to prove to the studios that he still had
a knack for big stupidness. Phone Booth is a Joel Schumacher
movie for those who don't like Joel Schumacher movies. It's no
classic, and any ten directors in thriller-movie history could've
tightened the screws more elegantly and maliciously, but Schumacher
at least tells the story fast and hard. He serves the
story.
And that story -- by Larry
Cohen, veteran of many gimmicky yet amusing B-movie scripts (It's
Alive, God Told Me To, Q) -- is essentially
one long conversation (it could easily be adapted to the stage).
Suave New York publicist Stu Shepard (Colin Farrell) is trapped
in a city phone booth by a moralizing sniper (Kiefer Sutherland,
sounding richly entertained throughout) who wants Stu to fess
up to his various crimes of dishonesty. Stu, married to comely
shop owner Kelly (Radha Mitchell), has been pursuing a flirtation
with aspiring actress Pam (Katie Holmes), calling her every day
from this very phone booth. The phone rings, Stu picks up, and
the game begins.
Soon, someone is shot, Stu
is blamed, the cops (led by Forest Whitaker in the Die Hard
role of the rotund, sensible black officer on whose intelligence
the hero's life rests) get involved, and Stu, commanded by the
sniper not to leave the booth or spill the beans, is caught in
a standoff. Like Dennis Hopper in Speed, the psycho in Phone Booth
has thought of everything. He doesn't just want to kill
Stu; he wants to force Stu, in a kind of brute intervention,
to lay bare his soul and strip away the layers of lies that insulate
him. After a while, Stu is sort of wishing the psycho would just
kill him.
Schumacher discovered Colin
Farrell on Tigerland, and he places this movie fully in
Farrell's care. Farrell has been groomed as the next big thing,
but he doesn't really need grooming, and Schumacher knows it;
Stu's connection to the audience grows stronger the grubbier
and more desperate he gets. And there's an added edge to the
casting: with most A-list stars, the story would be hampered
by the audience's awareness that nobody could possibly think
that, say, Tom Cruise would shoot someone. But what Colin Farrell
has to sell is his bad-boy image, his amiable-regular-drinking-guy
persona (last seen in the young Mel Gibson) with a pocket of
craziness underneath. On television monitors during the standoff,
Farrell's Stu looks like the kind of guy you'd see on
live TV coverage. He's plausible as both a hero and a suspect,
a tricky balancing act. If Phone Booth is a hit
-- surely the first Joel Schumacher film that deserves to score
-- credit will go less to Schumacher than to the actor whose
meltdown he photographs without fuss.
|