Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2661 in DVD
• Released on: 2003-08-11
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Anamorphic, PAL, Widescreen
• Original language: English, Swahili
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 78 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
For a film confined almost entirely to one tiny location, Phone Booth has been the centre of a lot of off-screen action: changing lead man from Will Smith to Jim Carrey to Colin Farrell, with various directors attached, and finally postponed as a result of the Washington Sniper attacks--and all this before its release. Still, Larry Cohen's taut 80-minute script finally hits the screens and, as public utility-based thrillers go, it's pretty gripping stuff.

Colin Farrell plays slick and obnoxious PR man Stu Shepard who picks up a ringing payphone only to be informed by a mysterious sniper (Keifer Sutherland) that there's a gun pointed directly at him. What Stu initially believes to be a joke turns about to be a vendetta from the sniper who objects to married Stu's philandering ways, and it soon escalates into a prime-time TV siege.

Joel Schumacher's energetic direction--employing some snappy editing and nifty split-screen techniques--helps distract from an uneven and often predictable plot. It's easy for the audience to think of a dozen ways this siege could be averted, but by upping the tension stakes Schumacher still makes it fun to watch.

Colin Farrell gives a compelling central performance, which runs the emotional gamut from anger to fear to anguish and even carries off a cheesy absolution scene. Keifer Sutherland's husky baddie voiceover is not exactly the stuff of nightmares but, like the rest of the film, you could do a lot worse. As a pure popcorn thriller, Phone Booth hits all the right buttons. --Laura Bushell

Special Features
Audio commentary by Director Joel Schumacher
Featurette: The Making of Phone Booth
2.35:1 widescreen (16:9)
Dolby Digital 5.1
Subtitles: English for the hearing impaired

Synopsis
Joel Schumacher (8 MM, FALLING DOWN) directs this suspense drama set in New York City's Times Square. A wannabe hotshot entertainment publicist who's more intent on posturing for his unpaid assistant than he is in actually working, Stu Shepherd (Colin Farrell) ducks into a phone booth to make his regular afternoon call to his girlfriend (Katie Holmes). Stu stops in the same phone booth at the same time every day to flirt with the young girl, who does not know that Stu is happily married with no intention of dating her seriously. When Stu says goodbye to his girl and sets down the receiver, he picks up a call from a threateningly sarcastic man with a deep voice. This man seems to have been tracking Stu's visits to this booth every day, and suddenly Stu knows that his secrets are no longer his own. Soon, the caller identifies himself as a sniper and begins shooting. Police are called in, and Stu must use his PR skills in a final test to get out of the booth, alive. This compelling drama, expertly crafted for maximum tension, will keep audiences nervously awaiting its outcome, unable to look away from the screen for even a moment.

Customer Reviews

The beauty of simplicity
This is perfect example of how to do an intelligent thriller - keep it simple. Find a simple plot device to hook your attention, and then let the characters drive the plot. In this case, it is literally one plot device, and one character - virtually everyone else is superfluous. There is a real beauty in this almost minimal simplicity.

The plot device is an absolute gem. Farrell is well cast as an arrogant, ambitious publicist, smart and hip, full of his own BS, a liar, who takes people for granted. In short, he is a deeply unlikeable person. He makes a phone call to a girl on a public payphone so his wife can't trace the number on his mobile. When he finishes the call, the phone rings, and he picks up. The voice on the end of the phone (Keifer Sutherland) tells him that he has a rifle trained on Farrell's head, and that if he doesn't answer his questions, he will be shot dead.

So what does the sniper want? He wants Farrell to admit what a fraud he is. We never see the sniper, hearing only the voice. We do not know why he is doing this or what his motives are. In the same way in the brilliant French thriller Hidden (Cache), we never find out who is watching the family and posting the tapes, it doesn't matter. The questions are probing, challenging, digging under the cockiness and BS of Farrell's character, making him confront and deal with his own failings. Farrell fights hard against this - gives as good as he gets, and yet because we don't like him we want him to be confronted, to be challenged. This is a confessional by phonebooth. We see Farrell for all his flaws, and we find out the reasoning behind those flaws.

In terms of its simplicity and sleight of hand in using a simple exciting premise to explore some of the darker realms of the human psyche, it's very reminiscent of Hitchcock. Whilst not as good as the peerless Rear Window or Vertigo, it is certainly up there. Rear Window is perhaps the better example, using a similarly minimalist set-up to ask some very interesting questions about voyeurism, our love of watching. In Phonebooth, Farrell reveals himself in all his snivelling, pathetic, human weakness, emotionally naked - and we feel sympathy for him, we want him to survive.

Beware the "15" category.
Other reviewers have commented on the limited location - but I found the limited language off-putting! Apart from the "F" word and a limited number of other obscenities, there was very little "script"! I thought the film had potential - certainly, once the opening scenes were out of the way the tension built up very rapidly. I don't know if that pace continued throughout because, after five minutes of the bad language, I gave up.

I noticed afterwards, that the "15" category was awarded, not by the British Board of Film Census, but by the Irish. I'm glad I don't live in Ireland!

Brilliantly original
Trapped in a phone booth by a sniper, Stu Shepard has the worst day of his life. This low budget thriller is set almost entirely on a single street but the great writing and direction leads to this being one of the most original and tense films that I have seen in ages. Colin Farrell gives a good performance starting out the typical arrogant agent and descending into total terror. Forest Whitaker gives his usual brilliant performance and Kiffer Sutherland is utterly convincing as the invisible sniper. Another good choice was the use of split-screening so that you can keep up with developments off the street while never leaving the main action. This film is thrilling and involving, leading to toughly enjoying viewing.