Rating: 
Summary: Silly but enjoyable
Review: Phone Booth is basically a silly little film that has absolutely no right to be as good as it actually is. The premise itself is one of those cinematic challenges that is beloved by students in film school but which rarely produce anything worth the effort in reality. Almost the entire film takes place in a phone booth and the challenge is to see whether or not the image of one guy talking and talking (and talking) on a phone can be made into compelling entertainment. It's not quite up to the level of remaking Psycho shot-by-shot (but in color!) but it's still the sort of thing that leaves one wondering whether the director or writer ever considered that maybe there's a good reason why not many movies take place in phone booths.The film stars Colin Farrell as a publicist who is meant to come across as sleazy but, in the film's oddly quaint view of a Godless New York, basically just seems to be a little overneurotic. One day, Farrell happens to be standing next to one of New York's last phone booths. That phone just happens to ring, Farrell just happens to answer it, and suddenly he's being told by Keifer Sutherland that if he leaves the phone booth, he will be [killed]. If the movie had just stuck with this storyline, it would have been a perfect recreation of everyone's worst nightmare -- being targeted ... by an unknown person for absolutely no reason. However, the film for some reason feels the need to give a reason and that's where it all gets a bit silly as it turns out that Sutherland's unseen sniper has specifically targeted Farrell and that this whole seemingly random situation is part of a plot so elaborate that -- even given the rubber logic we've come to expect from most movies -- it becomes obvious that the whole success of Sutherland's scheme depends on absolutely nobody behaving like they have a brain. Unfortunately, it's not enough that Farrell's character find himself in a living nightmare. No, he has to go through a living nightmare so that he can become a better person as a result. Still, the film is entertaining as long as you don't give it too much thought. Director Joel Schumacher has made a surprisingly lucrative career out of imitating the style of other superior directors. If his Batman films were his attempts to imitate a Bob Fosse musical, then Phone Booth finds Schumacher attempting to morph into an edgy, urban, indie film brat. Like all good imitations, Schumacher's direction presents an enjoyable (and, at times, almost convincing) surface without really developing anything underneath. However, what saves the film are the performers. Colin Farrell is a wonder in the lead role. On screen for nearly the entire running time, he is thoroughly convincing at conveying both a strangely innocent (and just as strangely endearing) insincerity in his first few scenes and he also perfectly captures his character's slow emotional breakdown as the film progresses. Madly seesawing from cockiness to anger to desperation (often in the same scene), Farrell is consistently sympathetic throughout the film. Even if you never believe the situation, you still hope he manages to get out of it. Sutherland, in what amounts to a voice over role, still manages to convey his character's perverse insanity and, if the script requires him to break into melodramatic laughter one too many times, he still manages to make the most of it. As the women in Farrell's life, Radha Mitchell and Katie Holmes have thankless roles but both are sympathetic. However, the film's real surprise is Forrest Whittaker, playing a soft-hearted police captain who has to decide whether or not Farrell is a madman or a victim. After years of directing glossy, Joel Schumacherish films and giving listless performances, Whittaker returns to form with Phone Booth. Whether accidentally sharing too many details about his recent divorce or trying to keep the other cops from blowing Farrell away, Whittaker manages to project the everyday man integrity and good humor that distinguished his earlier work in films like Good Morning, Viet Nam and The Crying Game. Phone Booth isn't the cinematic masterpiece it aims to be but it proves that Colin Farrell is a movie star and it provides a nice cinematic comeback for Sutherland and Whittaker. And for those reasons, it is a call worth answering.
Rating:
Summary: "Phone Booth"
Review: I just saw the the movie and it was very good. It was very suspensful! And Colin Farrells best proformence to date. He flew threw the emotions so fulentlly. It was great. See it. Especially if you are a fan of the movie "Speed". I takes a simple conspect and turn it into a suspensful masterpiece. The only thing I didnt like was the sexual referances. I thought they were unnessary. But overall it was a good movie check it out!
Rating: 
Summary: Finally!
Review: You have to take care with Joel Schumacher. After all, he was responsible for the transformation of the dark and gothic Batman stories into colorful little adventures (with nipples). In fact, after "Falling down (1993)", Schumacher's career seemed to be falling apart, even if he had opportunity to work with good scripts ("Time to kill" and "8mm") and good actors (Nicholas Cage, Robert deNiro, Anthony Hopkins). The thing is, "Phone booth" worked very well with me. Up-coming superstar Colin Farrell, once again being comprehensible as an american character, is Stu Shepard, a busy PR in New York City. He's married, and has a girlfriend. So that his wife doesn't find out he's calling the girlfriend on the cell phone, he makes those "low profile calls" on a phone booth. The story of "Phone booth" develops as Stu is leaving the phone booth after calling the girlfriend; then the phone rings, and he's compelled to pick it up. After that, he's drawn into a nightmare appearently without any reason to be happening. Simply made, filmed in only 12 days, "Phone booth" makes you seat on the edge of the seat the whole 90 minutes. Almost the entire story revolves around the booth. Schumacher uses a resourse you've seen plenty in Brian dePalma's movies: dividing the screen in aas many as four sections, so you can see different angles of what is happening at the same time. This works very well. Also, Kiefer Sutherland's voice as the sniper, the good performance by Farrell, together with good but smaller performances by Forrest Whitaker (as the negotiation cop) and pretty Katie Holmes (as Stu's girlfriend) make the movie go in a crescendo of thrilling sensations and exquisite feelings that are a pre-requisite for a good movie with the purpose of "Phone booth". You will only be able to think after the movie. While you are watching, pay attention, so you won't loose anything. Schumacher got it right this time. Grade 9.0/10
Rating: 
Summary: Pretty good.
Review: I wasn't disapointed by this movie. However, it wasn't near as suspenseful as I thought it would be. The whole setting of the movie is in one place. I thought some of it was pretty funny. However, I don't think that's what the filmmakers hoped for. All and all, I don't know if I'd highly recommend this movie, but it's certainly not the worst thing out now.
Rating:
Summary: Kiefer Sutherland saves the day!
Review: This is a typical thriller. A man with a great life steps into a phone booth to make a call and then it rings. "A ringing phone needs to be answered" is the catch phrase of the movie. Colin Farrell answers it and what ensues is an 81 minute movie about a mans own evil nature. Director Joel Schumacher hasn't had a good film since A Time To Kill. This one is a good start. However, there are holes in this plot if you can call it a plot. This is 81 minutes worth of a movie that is a good rental but a waste of money in the theater.
So why have i titled this with the title I have? Because Kiefer Sutherland is one of the great actors of our time. He is so believable as the voice on the other end of the phone that you can actually see in your own mind what he is doing. Only a great actor like Kiefer could have played this part. He makes the movie watchable and at the conclusion he leaves an impression. You will never look at a pay phone the same way again. I recommend this to die hard Colin Farrell fans and also people that like Kiefer Sutherland as a bad guy. This is Kiefer in true form.
Rating:
Summary: Taut Duel Thriller
Review: It seemed to me way too artsy to be a big ticket picture. When cut down to the bone, Phone Booth is pretty much a one-man show, with little setting change or supporting characters. Definitely Greenwich Village faire. That is what I thought, but as most assumptions are, this one of mine was proved wrong. Phone Booth is a riveting thriller that portrays a very tight duel between two men who both descend into madness as the story goes on. Other characters enter the fray, but they are pretty much window dressing compared to the performances delivered by Colin Farrell and Kiefer Sutherland. Farrell plays a man on the rise. A Manhattan PR consultant, Farrell pretty much spends his time setting up parties and spreading lies about his enemies. The citywide gossip machine is at his fingertips, and the money is rolling in. Unfortunately, Farrell has a really bad attitude, treating others like dirt and consistently lying to everyone around him. This cutthroat existence is stopped cold when Farrell stops to use a phone booth near Times Square. A mysterious caller informs him that unless Farrell does pretty much everything the caller tells him to do, people are going to start dying. It becomes clear early on that the man is serious. Soon, the spectacle of a man trapped in a phone booth attracts all sorts of attention, from the media and the police. As time goes on, he is tortured by the voice, which is horribly evil and serious as hell. Their conversation forces Farrell to make some very personal revelations, which will change his life in unknown ways. Colin Farrell makes this movie with some very impressive acting. It is a tough job for him, considering he is pretty much the only visual character in the movie. He handles it very well though, as his transformation from top flight know it all to frightened child is electrifying to watch. Sutherland, or really Sutherlands voice, is positively horrifying as it adds an eerie authority to its psychopathic possessor. The other actors do a satisfactory job, when they are actually on. Director Schumacher does a good job making the Times Square area as menacing as it is immense. His 24 style cut scenes are a good fit with this taut thriller, as the viewer is forced absorb several different happenings at once. The movie does have some problems however. I found the ending and, really the reasoning behind the whole escapade as kind of lacking in impact. It was extremely morally vague and did not really fit the dramatics of the rest of the movie. But, you cannot ask for everything. Very good effort by all involved, an interesting movie in the least.
Rating:
Summary: "Phone" well worth answering
Review: Joel Schumacher's intense film "Phone Booth" had me completely pinned to my seat for an hour and a half. I didn't even think about looking at my watch or cell phone to see what time it was. This rarely happens to me in a movie. This film is so fast paced and exciting that I could actually feel my heart pounding through my shirt. This is gutsy, gripping filmmaking from a very good director. Yes, Joel Schumacher has made some bad films in the past (We all remember "Batman and Robin"), but he has also made some films that will be remembered for years, such as "Falling Down" which, in my opinion, is one of his best films. "Phone Booth" is probably my new favorite film of his. Sure, it is a flawed film, but it is also a risky and daring film to make because the cast and crew had a huge challenge to overcome. How do you keep an audience interested in a story that takes place in pretty much one spot throughout, and do it for an hour and a half? Well they did it and they pulled it off wonderfully. A lot of the credit has to go to Colin Farrel who gives his best performance to date and Kiefer Sutherland who is just down right creepy in this film. They were both perfect and helped carry the film. I actually liked the premise a lot despite how dumb it may sound, I didn't think it was dumb at all. It was very compelling and is definitely a call you want to answer.
Rating:
Summary: Intense!
Review: Phone Booth is a real nailbiter. An genuine edge-of-the-seat roller coaster ride brimming with non-stop suspence. It certainly isn't the deepest of thrillers, and it has flaws in logic and presentation, but the idea behind it is a tension grabber: A man answers a phone in a phone booth only to be told that if he hangs up, he'll be shot by a gunman lurking in a nearby window. The man is Stu Shepard (Colin Farrell), an obnoxious New York press agent. Stu, who is married, regularly uses this same phone booth to call a young client and would-be girlfriend (Katie Holmes, who isn't given much to do) because he doesn't want the number to show up on his cell-phone bill. But the calls - and lives - of those who use the phone booth somehow are being monitored by a man with a vengeance (Kiefer Sutherland). Screenwriter Larry Cohen (It's Alive) has created a situation that so tense, you can overlook the thematic overreaching. Stu is forced into one double bind after another, with the Caller forcing him to make comments to his wife (Radha Mitchell) on the phone and to neighborhood strippers and cops on the street that only bolster the perception that Stu may be a gun-wielding menace. Director Joel Schumacher and Cohen keep the action taut and believable within its own self-contained world. Although the phone booth may confine Stu in uncomfortable ways, it has a liberating effect on Schumacher, who infuses his filmmaking with a no-nonsense energy to keep the story moving. The movie definitely works, holding you to that screen like poor Stu is held in that booth. At 81 minutes, "Phone Booth" is a lean, mean tension machine, setting up its premise, executing it with smarts, throwing in enough twists to keep things interesting, and wrapping it up before anyone can get fatigued or reflective. It's a smart, edgy thriller that kept this viewer glued to his seat.
Rating:
Summary: The Confession Booth
Review: Colin Farrell is everywhere lately: "Minority Report," "The Recruit." Now he is in his 3rd film this year, Joel Schumaker's ("Tigerland") "Phone Booth" a thriller said to have had Hitchcock interested in filming it 30 years ago. Hitchcock did have some experience with filming in small spaces and in long extended shots in his terrific "The Rope."
Farrell plays Stu Shepard: cad, smart aleck, tough-as-nails, philandering, publicist with a wife and a girlfriend. He makes one mistake that no New Yorker ever would, though: he answers a ringing public booth phone. (The film, though set in NYC was shot in Downtown Los Angeles) This begins Shepard's
"relationship" with a hidden sniper (Keifer Sutherland). And this sniper is not out for just creating mayhem in the big City; he's looking for retribution. He has specifically chosen Shepard to call on the carpet. He's looking for Shepard to make amends for his wicked ways. And therein lies the problem with this film.
What seemed to de developing into a fun, jazzy, quickly paced Thriller becomes a tale of contrition and movie moralizing: See What happens to you when you are not a Nice Guy??
With all that said though, Farrell breaks out of his normal smart-alecky, bad boy, expertly composed mold in one hyper-emotional scene comparable to Liza Minnelli's phone scene in "The Sterile Cuckoo" or Chris O'Donnell's Riverfront scene in "Men Don't Leave." This scene is so emotionally open and psychologically true that we finally get a peek, I think into Farrell's soul: heretofore something he has deigned to concealbehind his macho bravado.
At one hour and 24 minutes, "Phone Booth" cannot hold all the sanctimonious moralizing that Schumacher has slathered on. And more importantly, had he stuck to his initial guns of just going for the thrill, this film could have been a taut, fun B-Movie Thriller in the class with the best. But now it's merely a so-so Colin Farrell vehicle: groovy but not particularly important.
Rating:
Summary: Very suspenseful!
Review: In what seems like the most unlikely premise of all, we are treated to one of the most suspenseful movies so far this year. Not many people could take a film that has 90% of it taking place in a phone booth and still make it good, but Schumaker pulls it off here. Colin Farrell really shines in this movie, and as the suspense mounts toward the film's resolution, you really feel sorry for him. The sense of hopelessness he's feeling becomes your own as you realize there's no easy way out of the situation. The only thing I have against this film is that it could have easily been made into a PG-13 film for a wider audience range with just the loss of profanity. The violence is not as full as Lord of the Rings, but every third word is profanity and that's what earned it the R rating. I understand that you're trying to show Farrell's character's mounting desperation, but it could have been toned down a bit. Still, Keifer Sutherland's calm and even-tempered tone of voice is just psychotic enough to make you cringe when your own phone rings. He's definitely on a roll with his series "24" and now this great movie.
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