Phone Booth

Bomb Rating: 

I still hold Schumacher personally responsible for my mental breakdown following a screening of his abysmal "Batman and Robin".

When Jimmy Carter mentioned in the 1970's that he had sinned in his heart, little did he know that writer Larry Cohen and director Joel Schumacher would be listening and planning to turn the President's quandary into the moral barometer of their latest hack job.

I still hold Schumacher personally responsible for my mental breakdown following a screening of his abysmal "Batman and Robin". Now, whenever I hear the words "cod piece", I think of Schumacher and become positively apoplectic. Nobody should ever be forgiven for something that bad.

The ridiculous premise of "Phone Booth" is that a sniper has publicist Stu Shepard (Colin Farrell) pinned down in a phone booth. His problem with Shepard? Well, Stu is something of a player and he's sinned in his heart. Stu is trying to put the moves on a client, Pamela McFadden (Katie Holmes), though he's married to hottie Kelly (Radha Mitchell). How the sniper knows this, we have no idea. We're just supposed to buy it.

So for about eighty minutes, the sniper tries to get Stu to come to grips with his real self and admit that he's scummy, kind of like a very warped version of Dr. Phil. If you can imagine Dr. Phil with a rifle, hidden behind a curtain, you basically have "Phone Booth". Capt. Ramey (Forest Whitaker) shows up on the scene and tries to figure out why this guy won't get off the phone. Meanwhile, Kelly and Pamela stand around pouting like girl scouts who came up a few boxes short on their sales quota.

"Phone Booth" may be short on time and space, but it's long on stupidity.

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