Reviewed by PETER CALDER
(Herald rating: * * * * )
Its release delayed - for reasons which quickly become apparent - by the Washington sniper crisis, this is a one-gimmick movie, as meretricious as anything the showy Schumacher has ever turned in. It's also almost indecently exciting, a shot of such
pure suspense that it's easy to forgive the implausibilities that pile up or the glib, improbable ending.
The opening (and closing) effects are dismally silly but once the film hits its eponymous location - and explained away, in voiceover, the impossibility of finding a working, enclosed booth anywhere in the Big Apple - it hits the ground running.
Stu Shepard (Farrell), a sharp-suited, cynical publicist, is always one step ahead of his actor clients and the magazines he is trying to persuade to profile them. A professional liar, he's also desperate to cheat on his wife, which explains what he's doing in a phone booth: trying to inveigle a credulous, pretty client (Holmes) into an affair. He doesn't want his wife (Mitchell) to see her number on the mobile bill.
Such caution (she checks his phone bill?) suggests neither the ideal marriage we are encouraged to believe he has, nor the angelic status conferred on Mrs Shepard by the film's midpoint. No matter. The phone rings. Stu answers it. Bad mistake. Suddenly he's stuck in the crosshairs of a high-tech rifle held by a psychopath who wants him to confess to his sins.
Perhaps we should wonder why the rather pathetic Stu, small beer compared to the big wheels the gunman claims to have dealt to in recent weeks, has attracted the avenger's attention. But we're too swept up in the play-by-play.
The police arrive when the man on the other end of the phone line casually demonstrates his marksmanship by felling a pimp who is harassing the hapless Stu. The 100 armed police are led by the labrador-like Captain Ramey (the reliable Whitaker) who (surprise!) is having personal problems and gradually comes to realise that Stu is victim, not perpetrator.
Schumacher and schlock writer Larry Cohen (It's Alive 3, Maniac Cop 2) ratchet the tension up early and never let go. And Farrell, the busy Dubliner who will soon play Alexander the Great for Oliver Stone, is an excellent, profane motormouth who gradually crumples into something resembling humanity.
This is slick, sharp and empty. Who could ask for anything more?
Cast: Colin Farrell, Forest Whitaker, Kiefer Sutherland, Radha Mitchell, Katie Holmes
Director: Joel Schumacher
Running time: 85 mins
Rating: M (coarse language, medium-level violence)
Screening: Village, Hoyts, Berkeley cinemas from Thursday
Reviewed by PETER CALDER
(Herald rating: * * * * )
Its release delayed - for reasons which quickly become apparent - by the Washington sniper crisis, this is a one-gimmick movie, as meretricious as anything the showy Schumacher has ever turned in. It's also almost indecently exciting, a shot of such
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