I've always in a fair sense associate March as the luck of the Irish month aka St. Patrick's Day and so I try at the best of my abilities to recommend an Irish themed movie, unfortunately it is very hard to find Irish themed films that are on the exceptionally good scale or lost treasures, as to put it. So, this year I have decided to look for films that have a famous Irish actor or actress in the starring role or best known for in that on movie, and I suddenly remembered a small independently suspenseful film, that has a unique special thing about it, mainly because it has that special tribute to Alfred Hitchcock in a way. The films called Phone Booth for which stars Irish legend Colin Farrell who is taken hostage in a phone booth, to those who don't know or not familiar with what a phone booth is, they were basically the first ever like telephone to be placed outside so in case you need to make in emergency phone call there's a private space to make a phone call with know what to disturbed you until an annoying a**hole knocks on it and invades your privacy. So, lets' dive right into our safe space of a Phone Booth.
Cynical, smarmy PR man Stu Shepard (Colin Farrell) picks up a ringing phone in a booth in a busy New York Street to find a killer on the line. Armed with a high-powered sniper's rifle, the anonymous caller soon proves his prowess and presents Shepard with a choice - convince the police of his story before they shoot him or drop the phone and be shot. His only hope lies in self-abasement and facing up to the truths of his life.
During my teenage years I believe Colin Farrell was the first actor of my generational years where I never thought he was going to be an accomplished actor that he is now, for many reasons he always portrait himself as a bad boy type image where he would smoke a lot, show off his tattoos more like being this biker/hipster that he was in Ben Affleck's Daredevil film. Furthermore this was long before he became a Golden Globe winner, but in fairness he was a special actor when he first started out because the first film I was introduced to him was a small WWII film called Hart's War for which he starred along Bruce Willis then starred alongside Tom Cruise in Minority Report, so in all fairness he had some great acting credits I guess the way I would see it he really wanted to do more independent films to work more on his acting ability, and I looked through his filmography from Daredevil to In Bruges and it really shows from doing one epic movie like Alexander to a small film like In Bruges where I have to look at that man with huge praise of being a true professional actor, because when you’re in Hollywood you have no choice but to find work that's something you don't want to do but you have to in order to pay the bills. but when it comes to films like Phone Booth, he really does in exceptional job moreover delivers a great acting performance for which now I am going to have to check out Harts War because that is one movie I have not seen in a long, long time. The way the script was developed was fascinating, in the late sixties Larry Cohan who wrote Phone Booth, pitched the idea to the master of suspense Alfred Hitchcock, for which Hitch loved the idea. But the problem was that the project did not move forward, because the two men were unable to devise the plot which explained why the action had to be restricted to the one location. Cohan even recalled that Hitch would ask him if he had a solution to the problem when they met periodically met over the following years. Sadly, though after two decades among the passing of Hitchcock was when he came up with the idea of a sniper holding the protagonist hostage, and in all honestly, I would have loved to see a Hitchcock portrayal of Phone Booth, but fate does things to life that we can never control. Now before you click out of this review let me explain things in a personal not and that's yes, late Joel Schumacher directed Phone Booth and this was after his run on Batman and in all fairness the man did in deed direct some great films like A Time to Kill and The Client even though it was some of these big budget movie he just felt short on, but the interesting fact is that him and Farrell actually worked together on a small film called Tigerland so he at least knew he can trust Farrell into delivering a great performance of a scum bag who finally has a come to Jesus moment by being forced to confess by a psychotic sniper, Phone Booth was in fact one of the few films I remember as a High Schooler learning that this film was made within twelve days, ten in terms of production along with two days for some establishing shots, pickups and reshoots. And the way they were able to do that is just fantastic moreover I would tell anyone if you were trying to make a movie with in one set furthermore finding some inspiration, I would suggest watching Phone Booth. Every suspenseful film you have to have that protagonist and antagonist, which we do have in Colin Farrell as the protagonist but who really steals the show is TV legend Kiefer Sutherland who plays the mysterious sniper/caller, and what makes his performance so exceptional is that he's hardly in the movie all you really have is his voice and what he's able to produce with that psychotic like voice is just outstanding and really I'd wish he do more roles like this because he's great at it. Phone Booth is defiantly one of those films that you'll never get to make any more for many reasons telephone booths are long gone, and there just absolutely no way you can do that in any other location, but most importantly this is a long lost treasure that belongs in a Turner Classic Movie vault, furthermore needs to be seen by everyone because it's a great film from start to finish you get great supporting list of actors who deliver great performances more importantly you get great performances out of a young/up in coming actor out of Colin Farrell and Kiefer Sutherland. Also, this was one of Joel Schumacher's best film ever and sadly his last great film. So, in closing if you are looking for a great suspenseful film, I would highly recommend watching Phone Booth till the final frame.
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