2008 Woodie Awards
Phonebooth: Unique Thriller
Kate Ambrose
Issue date: 5/7/03 Section: Arts & Entertainment
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When you hear a ringing phone, don't you just want to pick it up? Well, after seeing Director Joel Schumacher's Phone Booth, you may think twice before answering your next phone call.
Everyone everywhere has cell phones nowadays. Payphones have pretty much become extinct. This similar situation is portrayed in the opening scenes of Phone Booth.
As a man on a mission, Stu Sheppard (Colin Farrell) journeys to a phone booth in the middle of New York City. Stu is a media consultant, constantly lying to the magazines and the publishers he has contacted about what people he has booked and what prices competitors are offering. And he can always be found on the phone.
It is here, to this phone booth, that Stu travels daily to make an important phone call that cannot be made on one of the two cell phones he carries with him. As he removes his wedding band and places this phone call, one can only think of his wife who must be left in the dark about his personal life.
Once his phone call to Pamela McFadden (Katie Holmes), the girl with whom is he looking to have an affair, is placed and Stu turns to leave the booth, the phone rings. Of course, a ringing phone must be answered and in the instant that Stu picks it up, his life will be altered forever.
The caller claims to have a gun and be hiding where Stu cannot see him, but he can clearly see Stu. The intensity increases when he begins naming details of Stu's life. As almost the entire film takes place inside, or around, this NYC phone booth, a pandemonium of sorts occurs when the caller begins to shoot people to prove to Stu he is real.
The police are called in, along with Stu's wife and Pamela. The caller will not let Stu hang up, threatening that when hanging up, he will immediately shoot him. Stu is even accused of murdering someone while in the phone booth. As the hours tick by and the threats from the caller get increasingly harsher, the movie gets increasingly suspenseful.
Everyone everywhere has cell phones nowadays. Payphones have pretty much become extinct. This similar situation is portrayed in the opening scenes of Phone Booth.
As a man on a mission, Stu Sheppard (Colin Farrell) journeys to a phone booth in the middle of New York City. Stu is a media consultant, constantly lying to the magazines and the publishers he has contacted about what people he has booked and what prices competitors are offering. And he can always be found on the phone.
It is here, to this phone booth, that Stu travels daily to make an important phone call that cannot be made on one of the two cell phones he carries with him. As he removes his wedding band and places this phone call, one can only think of his wife who must be left in the dark about his personal life.
Once his phone call to Pamela McFadden (Katie Holmes), the girl with whom is he looking to have an affair, is placed and Stu turns to leave the booth, the phone rings. Of course, a ringing phone must be answered and in the instant that Stu picks it up, his life will be altered forever.
The caller claims to have a gun and be hiding where Stu cannot see him, but he can clearly see Stu. The intensity increases when he begins naming details of Stu's life. As almost the entire film takes place inside, or around, this NYC phone booth, a pandemonium of sorts occurs when the caller begins to shoot people to prove to Stu he is real.
The police are called in, along with Stu's wife and Pamela. The caller will not let Stu hang up, threatening that when hanging up, he will immediately shoot him. Stu is even accused of murdering someone while in the phone booth. As the hours tick by and the threats from the caller get increasingly harsher, the movie gets increasingly suspenseful.