Review

Review Date: 13-April-03
Spoiler Rating: Medium
Juju Judgment: Just OK

Phone Booth (2003)

Back in the days of Isaac and Moses
God didn't come bearing ice cream and roses.
He'd smite you, he'd crush you, he'd swoop down like thunder,
He'd topple great cities and bury you under.
He certainly wasn't the type who would soothe you,
But we're asked to believe that he hoped to improve you.
Today, most have given up brimstone and Hell
(Instead, it's coy angels done by Raphael),
But a new movie hints that our lies and conceit
Mean that old, tough-love God is now back on the beat.

"Phone Booth" is a film that stars Colin Farrell
As a slick PR guy who's put over a barrel.
Stu wheels and he deals and he goes for the money,
Then he stops by a phone booth to call a young honey,
A pretty brunette that he's trying to woo
Though he's already got a blonde wife at home, too.
But all of a sudden the phone starts to ring
And when he picks it up a remarkable thing
Begins to unfold, like the vengeance of God
Raining horrible truth on his hot little bod.
(And hot it sure is, with his Black Irish wiles,
And those thick, dewy lashes that go on for miles;
On the one hand, they want you to think he's a zero,
But the casting of Farrell makes you feel for the hero.)

From out of the mouth of that dire phone's receiver
Comes the fate that will turn infidel to believer.
A sniper, it seems, has lured our man there
And of every one of his sins he's aware.
He tortures Stu cruelly and plays with his head
And tells him he must change his ways, or drop dead.
And when a bystander ends up getting shot
The cops soon arrive, and thus thicken the plot.
The only way out for the star, once so proud,
Is to admit all his faults to a huge New York crowd.
And when Stu's repented and finished his call
He discovers it's only begun, after all.

It's a tough proposition, which few could have aced:
To make a whole movie centered on one small space.
Director Joel Schumacher didn't make a bad picture
But it's a hot-and-cold, up-and-down, good-and-bad mixture.
Sometimes it's redundant, though it's not very long,
And it might have got dull if CF weren't so strong.
(Though the fine Forest Whitaker and Katie Holmes, too,
Are part of the cast, they have little to do.)
Though I know it can plead the "I'm fiction" defense
A lot of this puppy just doesn't make sense.
My biggest gripe with the film is the choice
For Kiefer Sutherland's role as the Voice.
He sounds not at all as a man would have done,
But rather like Hal from "2001."

I thought this was goofy, but I guess that it jibes
With the film's overall "God is Watching You" vibes.
Stu cries to the heavens, "I'm not so depraved!"
And that is the point --- he can yet still be saved.
For a thriller, this film climbs up on a stump
And suggests that we all need a kick in the rump
For being so shallow, self-centered, and vain,
That it isn't real guilt if we don't feel the pain.
If this type of moral is what you are seeking,
Maybe at "Phone Booth" you ought to be peeking.
And if you like Colin Farrell, you should take a shot,
But if he doesn't wow you, you'd perhaps better not.

Copyright © 2003 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.