Phone Booth

Dir. Joel Schumacher, starring Colin Farrell, Katie Holmes and Kiefer Sutherland.

There is corruption, dishonesty and violence in this world. There are people who have committed all these things, and there is one man (Kiefer Sutherland) who has decided to change it by introducing a new, perfect order. He does this by forcing sinful people to admit to all of their lies and sins, using mental games or simply by killing them. To complete one of his missions, he uses a simple phone booth.

The phone booth of the film's title, situated on a NYC street, is heavily used by a slick publicist, Stuart Shepard (Colin Farrell). Stuart goes there every day to call his girlfriend Pamela, so that his wife doesn't find out that he is cheating on her.

One day, after a lovers' row and an unsuccessful attempt to arrange a date with Pamela, he picks up the phone, hoping that it's her again wanting to make up... but it is not Pamela who answers in the phone. It's someone who knows everything about his life, and who tells Stuart that if he hangs up, he will be shot by a sniper. Would you believe him? At first, neither does Stuart, but the little red spot on his body finally convinces him.

The whole film was shot near a phone booth in Manhattan, for less than $2 million, in 10 days - and it works! The director, Joel Schumacher, builds the tension expertly, and Kiefer Sutherland is very convincing in his psycho-game and - strangely - is definitely more attractive than our poor Stuart. One of the film's weaknesses is the hard-to-believe wife. She is supposed to be a raving madwoman spying on her husband, but all we see is a loving and forgiving wife... But despite those minor discrepancies, the film keeps you in suspense...and leaves you a little jumpy at the sound of a ringing phone.