Movie Review - Phone Booth

Surprisingly Un-Trenty.

I went to see this flick a couple weekends ago with the Sister Sib and Ash. But before I get into the details of the film, I'd like to say a few words about the theater. Maybe it was the fact that we went to a really early matinee on a beautiful Saturday, but it sure felt like The Shining to me. We drove about 5 minutes outside of Rochester to a theater that looked like it sprouted up from a strip mine. Pulling into the parking lot, there were clearly employees' cars parked to one side, and then NO other cars in the lot. It was eeirily quiet. Two girls were out sweeping the sidewalks. In silence. We walked in and several perky high schoolers cheerfully served us. Either the sis was about to go RedRum all over the place, or we were in a bad TNT movie about a ghost theater and I should be looking around for tell-tale signs of Harry Hamlin. Neither turned out to be correct, and even more oddly we didn't end up being the only ones in the theater. Oh right, the movie...

Colin Ferrell is "Stu" (More of a thick soup than a man). He's got a Bronx accent and is basically a jerk. He's also got incredibly huge eyebrows and looks to be quite hairy overall. He steps into a phone booth to call his girl (you see, his wife monitors the cell phone bills), and that's when the fun starts. After he hangs up, the phone rings again. How could it possibly be for him? But there's no way to resist answering a ringing phone, yeah? The caller on the other end is sniper-man Kiefer Sutherland. He mocks Stu for a couple hours and tries to turn the whole thing into a morality play on how Stu should be a better husband.

Kiefer brings his "evil Kiefer" voice to the plate... but there's definitely a lack of chemistry between him and Farrell. It sounded to me like Kiefer was reading his part back and forth with the movie's producer (or maybe Fred the computer voice) in a soundroom in Vegas. Come to think of it, I did read somewhere that they added Kiefer to the movie later, so maybe that's accurate. This does seem to be Kiefer's future, though, seeing as how I've heard the evil Kiefer voice lately pitching MGD and MCI, among other acronyms.

The supporting cast:
Ash: Who else is in this movie?
Alex: Well there's Forest Whitaker...
Ash: Who?
Alex: Big black guy...
Sib: I was just gonna say that.
Ash: Was he in Green Mile?
Alex: Nope, different guy.
Alex: There's also Katie Holmes.
Sib: Yeah, maybe she'll die!
Ash: Oooh!

Yeah, that's pretty much all they're worth. Whitaker's the cop with a conscience, Holmes is the girl on the side. Radha Mitchell is the wife. There's also sympathetic sidekick cop, jumpy lead negotiator guy, a lot of hookers, and a guy with muscles. They're filler, Kiefer and Colin get 90% of the dialogue.

Finally, I'd be remiss if I didn't talk about the wonderful fake store fronts they put up in Times Square. In particular, The Deli Lama, and Shoe Bert were fantastic. In fact, at one point the Sis leaned over and asked me "Why haven't the cops interrogated Shoe Bert yet?". Best laugh of the film, folks. I'm only assuming these were fake, by the way - my apologies to Shoe Bert if he's real.

This film isn't good. But it's a good one to mock, and except for the horrible ending (clearly leaving the door open for Phone Booth II), you can have a decent time with it. Since it's better than The Transporter, we'll go with:

 
Two Trents.

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