AT ONE point during "Phone Booth," Joel Schumacher's sniper-themed thriller that had been delayed out of sensitivity to the shootings this past fall, a police detective confronts the man he believes has just gunned down someone in broad daylight on a busy Manhattan street corner.
"Who are you talking to?," a quizzical Captain Ramey (Forest Whitaker) demands of Stu Shepard (Colin Farrell), the slick PR operative who, moments earlier -- at least according to witnesses -- shot a pimp who was trying to yank him away from a pay phone.
Colin Farrell faces a tough choice -- stay on the phone, or get shot by a sniper -- in "Phone Booth."
(20th Century Fox)
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"My psychiatrist," says Stu, without dropping the receiver.
It's a wry, slightly sick touch -- and one that is appreciated by the person Stu actually is talking to (more about this later). Still, Stu might just as well have said "my confessor," since that's how "Phone Booth" actually plays: not as psychotherapy but as a sin-cleansing, albeit one with enough stomach-churning brinkmanship between the "sinner" and the "priest" to keep viewers nibbling their fingernails to the cuticle as they await dispensation of penance. Substitute the phone booth for the confessional, and a psychopath with a high-powered rifle with a silencer and scope for the priest, and that's what Schumacher's entertaining, provocative film is really all about.
Stu is a liar, not a murderer. That's his transgression (as well as his profession). He lies to get his clients publicity and to keep himself in Italian suits. He lies to his intern about when he'll start paying him. And he has been lying while trying to seduce a young actress (Katie Holmes), not only lying to her but to his wife (Radha Mitchell).
Unfortunately for Stu, someone noticed.
Not God, but someone worse. Someone who knows that Stu calls the actress every day from the same pay phone. Someone who calls Stu at that same phone and then proceeds to terrorize him, threatening to shoot him from his high-rise sniper's nest if Stu so much as hangs up or tells the cops who he's talking to. The pimp, of course, had to be shot in order to convince Stu that the voice on the other end of the line (Kiefer Sutherland, sounding a lot like HAL, the computer from "2001: A Space Odyssey," on a very bad day) was serious.
It's a little silly, actually -- this idea of an omniscient, moralistic, avenging angel who feels the need to punish liars but is not above a bit of coldblooded killing himself if it helps him make a point -- but the film works on a level beyond logic. What keeps "Phone Booth" going, despite its premise, is the acting and the writing, both of which are top-notch.
Farrell astonishes in a performance that basically calls for him to do nothing but talk: to his tormentor of course, but also to Ramey (who must keep the police sharpshooters at bay while he figures out what's going on) and to his wife, in an excruciating "confession" that hurts to watch. Luckily, he has a great script at his disposal. Screenwriter Larry Cohen's dialogue is taut and feels true to life, his plot twisty and his rumination on the extraordinary forces that some of us would have to face before confronting our own demons is unexpected fare for a thriller.
Despite its claustrophobic parameters, Schumacher keeps the whole affair rolling at an urgent clip, with an acidic, color-saturated palette that makes the film look alternately bloodshot and anemic. At a scant hour and a quarter (allowing for opening and closing credits), "Phone Booth" doesn't run much longer than "Piglet's Big Movie," but it's the perfect length. Any longer than that, and the distressing knot in my stomach would have sent me to the hospital.
PHONE BOOTH (R, 81 minutes) -- Contains obscenity, emotional intensity and brief gun violence. Area theaters.
