Phone Booth is a 2003 morality thriller about a man who is held hostage in a telephone booth by a sniper. It stars Colin Farrell, Kiefer Sutherland, Forest Whitaker, Radha Mitchell, Katie Holmes and was directed by Joel Schumacher. The music was composed by Harry Gregson-Williams. The film was originally scheduled to be released on November 15, 2002, but was delayed until April 4, 2003 due to the Beltway sniper attacks.
Filming
The principal photography on the film was completed in 10 days, with an additional 2 days of establishing shots, pick-ups and re-shoots. The film is set in real-time, so the timespan in which the film takes place is as long as it takes to watch it, much like the television series 24, which also stars Kiefer Sutherland. Like 24, it also uses split screens (and is also produced by 20th Century Fox).
Even though the film is set in New York City, it was filmed in downtown Los Angeles (at Fifth Street, between S Broadway and S Spring Street). This is made evident by the LACMTA buses periodically driving by.
Larry Cohen originally pitched the concept of a film that takes place entirely within a phone booth to Alfred Hitchcock in the 1960s. Hitchcock liked the idea, but he and Cohen were unable to figure out a plot reason for keeping the film confined to a booth and hence Hitchcock never made the idea into a film. Cohen picked the idea up again in the late 1990s when the idea of the sniper came to him.
Plot
Stu Shepard is an arrogant publicist, who is contemplating cheating on his wife Kelly (Mitchell). After work he calls Pam (Holmes), a young actress, from a phone booth. When a pizza delivery man tries to deliver a pizza to the booth Stu rudely dismisses him. After the phone call with Pam, the phone rings and Stu answers it.
The caller is a man who says that he should have accepted the pizza as it would have "kept his strength up for what comes next". The caller warns Stu not to leave the booth. The man doesn't tell Stu his identity, only that he loves to watch him. Stu, again dismissive, is skeptical towards the mystery caller, thinking it is a prank, and tells him he is going to hang up. The caller says that he'll say hi to Kelly for him, then hangs up, leaving Stu visibly concerned. The man soon calls back to tell Stu that he must tell Kelly and Pam the truth; that he's cheating. The man calls Pam and puts Stu on speaker phone, and tells her that Stu is married, that he doesn't want anything with Pam except to sleep with her. He then tells Stu to call his wife and tell her the truth, or he will. Angrily, Stu does so.
Before he has a chance to tell Kelly the truth, Stu is distracted by two prostitutes who want to use the phone. The prostitutes become hostile due to Stu's refusal to leave the booth, and start banging against the glass. Stu becomes agitated and finally hangs up on his wife and yells at the prostitutes to leave him alone. As the three girls leave, the man calls and tells Stu that if he hangs up, he will shoot him. Stu doesn't believe him, but is convinced when the man cocks his gun. Stu gets scared, warning him that if he shoots, the cops will arrive. However, the sniper proves him to be wrong by shooting a toy robot next to the booth without anyone noticing due to a silencer. The caller continues to mock Stu's faith that the caller isn't capable.
The situation escalates further when the prostitutes and their pimp, Leon, approach the booth and demand that Stu leave. Terrified that he will be shot, Stu refuses. The impasse between Stu and Leon escalates to the point of Leon breaking into the booth with a bat and attacking Stu. The sniper tells Stu he can help him and Stu says "yes". Leon is shot in the back by the sniper and the horrified hookers call the police, accusing Stu. The police arrive and Stu is instantly the suspect. He doubts that they will find any evidence to suggest his guilt to the murder, but later finds out the sniper has planted a gun in the phone booth that could be used to show he is hostile. Captain Ed Ramey (Whitaker) tries to negotiate with Stu to exit the booth but he says he cannot get off the call and he is talking to his "psychiatrist". Multiple news vans arrive and begin filming the situation, putting pressure on the police to deal with the situation without appearing trigger happy.
The caller continues to bait Stu by telling him to take hold of the planted gun, but Stu refuses, knowing the police will likely shoot him.
Kelly arrives at the scene and the sniper makes Stu confess to her about his infidelity, which Stu does. The man asks Stu to choose between Pam and Kelly, threatening to kill one of them to eliminate further temptation. Stu pleads with the sniper while at the same time using his cell phone to call Kelly, who secretly informs Captain Ramey of the sniper's presence when Ramey hears the conversation.
Stu confesses his bad character to the crowd, telling his unpaid assistant, Adam, who looks up to Stu, not to become a publicist and admitting his $2,000 watch is a fake, like himself.
Captain Ramey (Forest Whittaker) outside the booth negotiating with Stu (Colin Farrell)
The police finally track down the sniper by tracing the call the sniper made to Kelly and Ramey tells Stu through a cryptic message that they have done so. Stu foolishly informs the sniper that the cops are coming to get him and the now enraged sniper chooses to take Kelly with him, seeing as she is the most important thing in his life. Panicked, Stu takes the planted gun, runs out of the booth and yells "it's me you want!". Stu is shot just as police break into a hotel room, discovering a dead body and a sniper rifle.
It later transpires that Stu had been hit by a rubber bullet from a police sniper, leaving him relatively unharmed.
The police wheel the body they found in the hotel room down onto the street, and Kelly insists on seeing the sniper's body. Stu identifies the body as the pizza delivery man who had earlier tried to give him a free pizza.
As the film draws to a close, Stu is recovering under morphine in an ambulance. A man carrying a large briefcase walks up to him, says that he regrets killing the pizza deliverer and warns Stu that if his new-found honesty does not last, he'll be hearing from him again. He walks away and smiles as he passes the phone booth, revealing himself to be The Caller. He says "Isn't it funny? You hear a phone ring, and it could be anybody...but a ringing phone has to be answered, doesn't it?" Then the phone rings, the shot pulls out into space, and the film ends with a man's voice saying "Hello?"
Cast
Box office
| Box office revenue |
Box office ranking |
Reference |
| United States/Canada |
Other territories |
Worldwide |
All time US/Canada |
All time worldwide |
| $46,566,212 |
$51,270,926 |
$97,837,138 |
#1,187 |
# |
[1] |
References
External links
