Joel Schumacher's The Phone Booth is an entertaining roller coaster ride, a fast paced thriller loaded with morals, some plausible others far fetched.
Collin Farell as Stu Shephard is the main character in a film that is practically set on one scenario: a phone booth, the last one in Manhattan. In the world of public relationships, business, change of credit cards, you name it, a man like Shephard is the king. He represents the inter-medium between half truths and public lies. He is a man without compassion, able to not pay his colleagues, lie at any price and sell his soul to the devil of public relationships. He is the perfect guy to threaten for truth He removes his marriage ring for a couple of minutes very mid day from the same booth to talk to his young (Katie Holmes) woman who is aspiring to be an actress, giving her false hopes about becoming a star. But someone seems to be aware of Shephard's ways. This guy is cold minded, capable of putting into great difficulties a man with a growing feeling of guilt, a fact perhaps overly underlined by Larry Cohen's screenplay. The phone booth of New York rings. Somebody must pick up the phone and Shephard is to close to ignore it. The guy behind the phone is the sniper, and he wants Shephard to confess his sins or get shot.
The plot almost belongs to a short feature film but Schumacher does a great job of conserving the only scenario (with the exception of some scenes where we see the police) without ever being dull. This is partly due to the great verbal exchange between the victim and the sniper. The sniper's voice suggests a strong presence, a sadistic but mesmerizing tone. "Do you see the tourists with their video cameras, hoping the cops will shoot so that they sell the tape?", he says in one of the film's best moments. Collin Farell offers enough fast talk, gestures of fear and regret to bring his character to life, which is all the more compelling considering he is basically talking to a mouthpiece for the most part. The ever tightening camera work does a great job of increasingly adding to the tension.
With this film, I can see what Schumacher was trying to do: to criticise without pity a society filled with adultery, racism and hypocrites (everything Shephard represents) who do not see that they are the deciders of their own destinies. The film's weakest point is the sniper's motive which is closer to morality than the ethic of behaviour which united with some fancy words, reduces some of the film to some very basic moral objectives that even a five year old could understand. But as a whole, this is a film worth watching just to have a good time.
Collin Farell as Stu Shephard is the main character in a film that is practically set on one scenario: a phone booth, the last one in Manhattan. In the world of public relationships, business, change of credit cards, you name it, a man like Shephard is the king. He represents the inter-medium between half truths and public lies. He is a man without compassion, able to not pay his colleagues, lie at any price and sell his soul to the devil of public relationships. He is the perfect guy to threaten for truth He removes his marriage ring for a couple of minutes very mid day from the same booth to talk to his young (Katie Holmes) woman who is aspiring to be an actress, giving her false hopes about becoming a star. But someone seems to be aware of Shephard's ways. This guy is cold minded, capable of putting into great difficulties a man with a growing feeling of guilt, a fact perhaps overly underlined by Larry Cohen's screenplay. The phone booth of New York rings. Somebody must pick up the phone and Shephard is to close to ignore it. The guy behind the phone is the sniper, and he wants Shephard to confess his sins or get shot.
The plot almost belongs to a short feature film but Schumacher does a great job of conserving the only scenario (with the exception of some scenes where we see the police) without ever being dull. This is partly due to the great verbal exchange between the victim and the sniper. The sniper's voice suggests a strong presence, a sadistic but mesmerizing tone. "Do you see the tourists with their video cameras, hoping the cops will shoot so that they sell the tape?", he says in one of the film's best moments. Collin Farell offers enough fast talk, gestures of fear and regret to bring his character to life, which is all the more compelling considering he is basically talking to a mouthpiece for the most part. The ever tightening camera work does a great job of increasingly adding to the tension.
With this film, I can see what Schumacher was trying to do: to criticise without pity a society filled with adultery, racism and hypocrites (everything Shephard represents) who do not see that they are the deciders of their own destinies. The film's weakest point is the sniper's motive which is closer to morality than the ethic of behaviour which united with some fancy words, reduces some of the film to some very basic moral objectives that even a five year old could understand. But as a whole, this is a film worth watching just to have a good time.