Intriguing concept isn't it. A film that takes place entirely in a phone booth in which a man will be assassinated if he leaves the area. And then the police attempt to negotiate when he is thought to have shot someone. From the start, you can tell that this will be a good movie. The concept in itself is worthy of 80 minutes of your time. The movie gets all of its power from the long high-octane thrill, which carries on from start to finish in a deadly one act. The premise never wears thin and ends just at the right moment. It is very strange that instead of being a small-scale A grade flick, this is a large-scale summer blockbuster. And that is one of the films downfalls. Schumacher completely overplays the effect, which bogs down, what should have been, plot subtlety.
I'm not saying that `Phone Booth' was bad. I'm just saying that it had the potential to be IMDb Top 250 material as a landmark in cinema history. But too often does Schumacher rely on 'outsider' help. The creation of modern era New York is perfectly realistic, but did this really need a narrator? This isn't helped by fast edits, split screens and flashbacks, which do nothing but lessen the effect. It must have been very easy to make. It might have been slightly better had they done the entire movie in one take and perhaps degraded the shots to make them look slightly less Hollywood like.
The small details are occasionally impressive, but others are un-necessary. Case in point is the fact that they fiddled with the 20th Century Fox logo at the beginning. This was a neat idea when directors first started doing so, but here it just seems pointless. And they gave the opening a glossy `Broadway musical' style Barbershop score. But they have a dazzling `zoom in' on New York City. The outcome is accelerated by a shock ending which is followed by yet another shock ending which de-shocks that which we thought was true. That sounds confusing, but watch the film and you'll understand.
Colin `I've been in a million movies this year' Farrell quite frankly overdoes the `look at me! I'm an asshole' act in the opening moments but once he's in the booth, the performance kicks in. They should really have an Academy Award for `Best Voice'. If they did, Keifer Sutherland would be a shoe-in, as the menacing, antagonistic vocals are right on target. It's just too bad they made the inexcusable mishap of putting him on the front cover, as it answers the question of `Will he show up or not?'. Supporting turns are good from Radha Mitchell, Forest Whitaker and Katie Holmes.
Of course then there's all the symbolic, philosophical hokum that just doesn't work. Schumacher shouldn't have tried it out in the first place. You've probably noticed that most of what I've done in this review is complain about the picture, yet I still claim to like it. `Phone Booth' is great high-octane, thrilling fodder, but it had the potential to be a classic. My advice is to go in with low expectations and you won't be disappointed. My IMDb rating: 6.4/10.
I'm not saying that `Phone Booth' was bad. I'm just saying that it had the potential to be IMDb Top 250 material as a landmark in cinema history. But too often does Schumacher rely on 'outsider' help. The creation of modern era New York is perfectly realistic, but did this really need a narrator? This isn't helped by fast edits, split screens and flashbacks, which do nothing but lessen the effect. It must have been very easy to make. It might have been slightly better had they done the entire movie in one take and perhaps degraded the shots to make them look slightly less Hollywood like.
The small details are occasionally impressive, but others are un-necessary. Case in point is the fact that they fiddled with the 20th Century Fox logo at the beginning. This was a neat idea when directors first started doing so, but here it just seems pointless. And they gave the opening a glossy `Broadway musical' style Barbershop score. But they have a dazzling `zoom in' on New York City. The outcome is accelerated by a shock ending which is followed by yet another shock ending which de-shocks that which we thought was true. That sounds confusing, but watch the film and you'll understand.
Colin `I've been in a million movies this year' Farrell quite frankly overdoes the `look at me! I'm an asshole' act in the opening moments but once he's in the booth, the performance kicks in. They should really have an Academy Award for `Best Voice'. If they did, Keifer Sutherland would be a shoe-in, as the menacing, antagonistic vocals are right on target. It's just too bad they made the inexcusable mishap of putting him on the front cover, as it answers the question of `Will he show up or not?'. Supporting turns are good from Radha Mitchell, Forest Whitaker and Katie Holmes.
Of course then there's all the symbolic, philosophical hokum that just doesn't work. Schumacher shouldn't have tried it out in the first place. You've probably noticed that most of what I've done in this review is complain about the picture, yet I still claim to like it. `Phone Booth' is great high-octane, thrilling fodder, but it had the potential to be a classic. My advice is to go in with low expectations and you won't be disappointed. My IMDb rating: 6.4/10.