Shelved in the US due to the Washington Sniper murders, Phone Booth is a film that has been floating around for a long time. Writer Larry Cohen conceived the idea in the 60’s when he pitched it to Alfred Hitchcock, but they couldn’t think of a reason to hold a man in a phone booth for the length of a movie. Flash forward to the 90’s when Cohen comes up with the idea of the sniper. Throw in some interested parties like Will Smith, Jim Carrey and Michael Bay before it finally comes to Joel Schumacher. He gets Colin Farrell for the lead, but the studio holds back on the release until Farrell becomes more ‘bankable’.

It’s just as well that Schumacher held out for Farrell as I can think of nobody that could have worked as well in this picture as he has. At the beginning of the film we see him as a cocksure publicist, fast talking, slick and despicable. Farrell (behind a pitch perfect Bronx accent) is excellent here, convincing completely. If the studio wanted to wait until he was bankable then this role may well be the clincher that makes him bankable.

As the film moves on and the snipers demands become more and more emotionally draining, we see Farrell slowly strip away the slickness and the cockiness to reveal a small, shallow man. A man that dresses the way he does and talks down to people the way he does in order to make himself feel more important. Again, Farrell nails it, we begin to pity the very man that at the start of the film we despised.

Given that the majority of the films slight 80 minute runtime has Farrell on screen, the rest of the cast has little time to impress. Forrest Whitaker gets the most time as the police captain on the scene, determined to avoid a suicide-by-cop live on national TV. It’s hinted at that he may have lost his last negotiation which led to the collapse of his marriage, but it is never elaborated on. Radha Mitchell plays Farrell’s wife and Katie Holmes the potential mistress, but neither has much to do outside of looking worried.

The only other notable acting performance is by Kiefer Sutherland and he has the least screen time of all (it seems the studio wishes to cash in on the popularity of his TV show ‘24’ as he finds his face on the DVD cover even though he has less than a couple of minutes screen time). As the voice of the sniper he has to put himself across entirely by his voice. It’s a task that Sutherland pulls off wonderfully. His voice has a glorious caustic tone to it and the way he toys with Farrell is excellent. The back and forth between Farrell and Sutherland is fantastic, the battle of wits adds to the incredible tension of the movie no end.

Given that almost the entire movie takes place inside the titular phone booth it was crucial that Schumacher find some way to shoot the film that made each shot look fresh and keep the pace of the film going. Schumacher pulls it off as we never get tired of seeing the booth and the film is always sprightly, never dawdling.

A lot of good work in the editing room has been done here as well, quick fast cuts and some split screen help rack up the tension. The sound of the movie also helps the tension as Sutherland’s tones always come out of the rear speakers of your 5.1 set up to really put you in the heart of the movie.