Phone Booth: Review By carl

I'm not really what you would call a fan of Director Joel Schumacher; as his obsession with trying to be ultra hip has ruined a number of fantastic series, such as the last 2 Batman films. Yet still, when I first heard about Phone Booth I was drawn to the film. How could I not be? I've always been a fan of suspense movies and so the idea of a film about a man who picks up a ringing phone, only to be pinned down by a psychotic sniper; seemed to good to miss, especially since at that point I had no idea who was directing. Flash forward to the films release, after far too many delays because of some unpleasant individual in America, and I was there all ready to enjoy the film of the year. Naturally I was disappointed.

The reasons for my disappointment seemed pretty major at the time, and blinded me to the things that the film actually does right. Nevertheless the film still does have these serious problems, and so first things first I'll do my job as a critic, I'll criticize. You see Phone Booth as a film seems to be the most wasted opportunity at a gritty thriller in years. The plot development never so much as hints that the writers were aiming for something believable, with one of the films more urgent situations being caused by a group of irritating hookers (yes hookers not call girls) whose combined IQ still wouldn't be high enough for someone to add up change. "Yes Mr. Police Officer, my friend was attacking this guy from the front; and he responded by shooting him in the back with an invisible gun." Damn did they irritate me, but worse than that was the police who, with the exception of one, could never quite figure out that a guys psychiatrist would not ask him to ask a potentially trigger happy cop if he has to pleasure himself. The acting doesn't help though, those hookers I mentioned are the worst, being the ones who attempt emotion and come out extremely irritating, but the cops, as well as most unimportant characters, take the silver medal by being devoid of any believable emotions, frustrations or anything else to distinguish them from any other group of walking clich