You would think a movie that concentrates on one man in one tinybooth would be boring.
In the case of Phone Booth, you would be wrong.
Colin Farrell plays Stu Shepard, a self-obsessed fake whomanipulates others masterfully, who picks up a phone in the lastphone booth in New York City.
On the other end is Kiefer Sutherland, playing a creepy sniperwho is out to make Stu admit his desires to sleep with his sultryaspiring actress and client wife, played by Katie Holmes.
It seems too simple to be a one-hour drama, but director JoelSchumacher uses multiple camera angles, sometimes as many as four,going simultaneously to bring you into the action.
What starts as a simple story becomes increasingly complex.Screenwriter Larry Cohen brings in the flavor of New York withangry prostitutes, senior police officer (Forrest Whitaker) and hisback-story, the role of a bleed-and-lead media, ogling tourists andthe bustling world outside the booth.
But Sutherland and Farrell carry the story. Sutherland achievesall the scary sleaziness of his role in the movie Freeway in Booth,but with a psychotic mission made all the more believable after thereal-life Washington, D.C., area shootings.
Farrell trades his Irish accent for a Bronx one. He carries hischaracter and the audience from guarded self-interest to theultimate disclosure that, surprisingly, comes off genuine, notcliche.
The overall feeling is the same as when you watch a man alone onstage, without special effects, yet with his acting skills he makesthe audience care about his evolution.
These days, that is a very rare thing to find at the movies.
