Right: PR man’s nightmare ... Stu Shepard (Colin Farrell) takes a call he would rather have missed.

Thriller’s phoney tone
Phone Booth


Stars Colin Farrell, Kiefer Sutherland, Forest Whitaker, Radha Mitchell, Katie Holmes, Paula Jai Parker. Rated M.
Reviewer: PTE Simone Heyer
The number of senior citizens in the audience should have been clue enough that Phone Booth was attracting a certain set.

Now the theory behind this film is sound. Man answers phone in the last phone booth in New York and if he hangs up, or gives up the game, he’s dead.

Stu Shepard (Farrell) is a PR man. He spends his days juggling fame wannabes, function coordinators, gossip columnists and magazine editors, pitting each against the other to get the results he wants and a piece of fame himself.

In his life of lies Stu tries to seduce Kelly (Holmes) a young actress.

He rings her from the same phone box at the same time every day. Sweet, you may say, but he does it to prevent his wife Sarah (Mitchell) from finding out he’s up to no good.

One day, when Stu’s conversation is finished the phone rings – what do you feel you must do to a ringing phone? Answer it, and answer he does.

A creepy, even-toned voice comes down the line. The voice knows Stu, he knows about Kelly and Sarah, knows Stu’s movements around the city.

He forces Stu to do all sorts of things under threat of death, which Stu doesn’t believe until he hears the clink of the bolt and sees the red laser spot on his chest.

That’s right – sniper rifle, set up in one of the hundreds of windows in the building-lined street.

The caller caps a bouncer at a strip club across the street to prove his marksmanship – the cops turn up and Stu has to convince them he didn’t do the shooting, without putting the phone down. The voice then proceeds to make all manner of requests until Stu is a blithering mess.

The voice proudly claims killing two others by similar means – a paedophile and a dodgy businessman and Stu, the lying PR man, is next if he doesn’t learn his lesson.

Throughout the film I had the time to ponder the source of the voice. It sounded almost Sideshow-Bobish and was quite off-putting until it was revealed.

G’day Kiefer Sutherland. Too bad we didn’t get to see a bit more of his face.

Stu is forced to face up to his deceit and, encouraged by the voice, to mend his ways. It’s just as well a kindly cop kept control of the mob of policemen and trusted that Stu wasn’t a psycho.

So much more could have been made from Phone Booth – more suspense, more violence, more mind games; the surface was only scratched. It ends and you feel there should be something more.

The cinematography is great, though. Sweeping shots and crazy angles seem to add to the tense, built-up vibe the movie is trying to get across.

Farrell plays the lying, cheating PR man rather nicely and Sutherland is a suitably odd, cold scary character.