Phone Booth

Drama, Thriller, Action

Colin Farrell	Stuart Shepard
Kiefer Sutherland	The Caller
Forest Whitaker	Captain Ramey
Radha Mitchell	Kelly Shepard
Katie Holmes	Pamela McFadden
Tia Texada	Asia
Richard T. Jones	Sergeant Cole
John Enos	Leon
James MacDonald	Negotiator
Josh Pais	Mario

Director	Joel Schumacher
Producer	Gil Netter; David Zucker
Writer	Larry Cohen

By some lucky quirk of fate, Phone Booth landed on Hollywood's A-list, but this thriller should've been a straight-to-video potboiler directed by its screenwriter, veteran schlockmeister Larry Cohen, who's riffing on his own 1976 thriller God Told Me To. Instead it's a pointless reunion for fast-rising star Colin Farrell and his Tigerland director, Joel Schumacher, who employs a multiple-image technique similar to TV's 24 to energize Cohen's pulpy plot about an unseen sniper (maliciously voiced by 24's Kiefer Sutherland) who pins his chosen victim (a philandering celebrity publicist played by Farrell) in a Manhattan phone booth, threatening murder if Farrell doesn't confess his sins (including a potential mistress played by Katie Holmes in a thankless role). In a role originally slated for Jim Carrey, Farrell brings vulnerable intensity to his predicament, but Cohen's irresistible premise is too thin for even 81 brisk minutes, which is how long Schumacher takes to reach his morally repugnant conclusion. --Jeff Shannon