MOVIE OF THE WEEK: ‘Phonebooth’ succeeds with tense contained suspense

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PRESTON WALTER

Contained movies are easily some of my favorite movies to watch just because in a contained movie the director relies on the performance from the cast and crew to keep the audience captivated. The movie Phone Booth (2003) which is a contained movie follows the story of a hot shot agent, Stu Shepard played by Colin Farrell in New York whose life gets completely turned upside down as he steps into a phone booth to take a phone call. But little does Stu know that on the other end is mysterious stranger voiced by Keifer Sutherland. Who threatens to kill Stu and places large red sniper sight on him to keep him on watch at all times. With Stu being stuck to the Phone Booth this and when the mysterious phone caller ends up shooting an innocent civilian to prove to Stu that he will kill him if he doesn’t obey what he tells him to do. This leads to police detective Captain Ramsey played by Forest Whitaker to come and try to help Stu out.

The thing I really love about Phone Booth is that it is a movie where the character is in constant danger throughout the entire runtime. Stu is always trying to think of way to outsmart the police and the caller in order to try to escape the situation alive. Phone Booth is always a constant thrill ride everytime I watch it because it never fails to keep me on the edge of my seat.

Director Joel Schumacher who has made some okay movies in the past really stives in this movie as his direction is impeccable at keeping the viewer guessing as to what the caller or Stu might do. But Schumacher also gets some really great performances out of Colin Farrell, Forest Whitaker and Kiefer Sutherland who all steal this movie.

In the end, Phone Booth is a great addition to the contained movie genre as it provides non stop thrills and keeps the audience guessing. Add in some top notch performances from the entire cast and this movie never fails to captivate me everytime I watch it.