by Peter Morris in Los Angeles on April 9 2003
Not exactly an inspiring title and when you hear that almost the whole film takes place in and immediately around the last phone booth in Times Square, New York, you‘ve got to ask yourself how interesting is that going to be? Well the answer is more than a bit and a lot more than I‘d expected!
The premise is that Stu Shephard (COLIN FARRELL - "Daredevil", "The Recruit", "Minority Report", "Tigerland") is a New York PR man who‘s working and living in his own little fantasy world where he is king and he doesn‘t care who he has to lie to in order to maintain the situation. One of his major deceptions, however, involves a little ritual whereby he phones his would-be girlfriend Pamela ( KATIE HOLMES - "The Gift", "Wonderboys", "Abandon" , "Dawsons Creek" ) everyday from the last remaining phone booth in Times Square - because his wife checks his cell phone bills. Pamela is an innocent wannabe actress from out of town and has no idea Stu is married. After one such call he‘s stopping to light a cigarette when the phone rings and he‘s unable to resist the urge to pick it up and that turns out to be his worst decision of the day!
Unbeknownst to our lying and cheating PR guru - a psychotic stalker (KIEFER SUTHERLAND- "Young Guns", "A Time to Kill", "24" et al)) has bugged the phone booth, been listening in to all the calls made there and taken it upon himself to be the moral judge and jury! It‘s not giving too much away to let you know that he‘s already got away with two "executions" and has now decided Stu is the next man on trial and if he leaves the phone booth he‘s a dead man!
What follows is a clever piece of filmaking using very limited resources and yet not at all lacking in dramatic tension as a result.
The excellent FOREST WHITAKER ("The Crying Game", "Panic Room" et al) plays the police captain who has to deal with an apparent madman in a phone booth in an area full of tourists and resolve the situation without bloodshed or huge negative publicity of having cops gun him down.
This film was originally supposed to have been released in the States last year but was postponed because of the real life sniper killings taking place in and around Washington DC. It finally opened stateside at the beginning of April and topped the box office charts on its opening weekend.
I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this film but then again director JOEL SCHUMACHER ("The Lost Boys", "Flatliners", "Batman and Robin", "Batman Returns" , ) has been at it for a while and generally knows what he‘s doing- and probably the smartest move here was keeping it to under an hour and a half- let‘s face it even in Times Square a phone booth can only hold your attention for so long.
The cast were good at what they did particularly COLIN FARRELL who is obviously a fine actor/film star in the making.
CWW rating as good a thriller as I‘ve seen this year so far 7.5 out of 10
UK Release: 18 April 2003
Celebrities Worldwide Rating: 7.5 out of 10
David Jensen Photography:
https://www.davidjensen.co.uk/
