Phone Booth - (may contain minor spoilers)
Directed by Joel "Batman & Robin" Schumacher, Phone Booth stars Colin Farrell as Stu, a small-time publicist who is held at gunpoint in a telephone box (Its a telephone box, the film would be so much better if it was called "telephone box") by a moralistic sniper.
Farrell puts in a fairly good performance here, his character feeling realistically terrified, although descending into melodrama at times. Supporting performances are muted, Forest Whitaker not on best form, Radha Mitchell and Katie Holmes both playing cliched characters whose only point of existence is their relationship to Stu. The movie doesn't treat them like real people, only objects or acquaintances of Stu.
My main gripe with the film is why Stu is targeted in the first place. Sure, he's a shallow, self-centered, ignorant twit, but is that really enough for this sniper to purposefully target him? And how on earth did he find out so much about him, his personal life, his friendships? It just defies belief sometimes.
It's entertaining enough, and short enough to be worth watching, clocking in at a punchy 81 minutes.
On a final note, I read somewhere that the film's writer once pitched a similar concept to Alfred Hitchcock. Can you imagine how much better this film could have been with him at the helm?
Reply to Topic
