Thrilling ‘Phone Booth’ lives up to hype

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Everyday people wander in and out of life aimlessly, yapping into cell phones, making fruitless connections, lying to save face, spending money on things of little importance, making a mockery of the relationships they hold.

Phone Booth

And you thought the movies don’t teach us how self-centered we have become.

Add a sniper rifle, a creepy voice, Hollywood’s hottest actor and a director rebounding from the disasters that were the last two “Batman” movies and prepare for a movie of shocking entertainment value.

In “Phone Booth,” young hotshot publicist Stu Shepard (Colin Farrell) is walking through the streets of New York City, talking into his cell phones, with a lowly assistant following like a puppy. Stu is the kind of guy you’d see on the street and figure is just an everyday egomaniac, who dresses in Italian suits, wears a $2,000 watch and has the life we wish we could have.

He has a wife, Kelly (Radha Mitchell) and a woman he fantasizes about on the side Pam (the adorable, but wasted Katie Holmes). He has the hottest young rapper on his client list and can charm his way out of trouble with those he has ripped off before.

Until one day, after making his daily call to Pam from a phone booth, he picks up the same phone to hear a man’s voice (Sutherland) who has been watching him, listening to his daily lies and wants to permanently stop Stu from being the bad person he doesn’t realize he is.

The phone man shows Stu he means business by killing the next guy in line for the phone.

“From this distance, the exit wound would be about the size of a small tangerine,” the caller tells Stu as a silent bullet rips through the first victim.

And now, Stu must tap-dance around a New York City police captain (Forest Whitaker), who suspects him in the murder, without telling him who he is talking to on the phone.

This story has been bouncing around Hollywood for years, and was set for release last year, but because of last year’s sniper killings, it was delayed once more. Now, with Farrell’s bankability and the D.C. sniper a distant memory, “Phone Booth” comes to the masses with so much anticipation, one can’t help but wonder if it can live up to its hype.

It does.

Joel Schumacher directs this story, written by Larry Cohen, with a confidence not displayed since “The Client” in 1994.

After single-handedly driving the “Batman” franchise into the bowels of hell, Schumacher creates an atmospheric thriller those who are claustrophobic should avoid.

Farrell is working on all cylinders. After going toe to toe with Al Pacino in “The Recruit,” breathing life into “Daredevil” and giving Tom Cruise a race for the sexiest leading man in Hollywood in “Minority Report,” Farrell’s work in “Phone Booth” is his best to date. His New York accent slips every once in a while to his native Irish tongue, but that’s nitpicking at a bold and wonderful performance.

And Sutherland, phoning in his performance here, has never been creepier. He lowers his already raspy voice and delivers each line with a phone-sex quality that will send chills down the spine.

The lesson is clear: Leave the cell phone at home and enter “Phone Booth” for 75 minutes of suspenseful fun that is among the year’s best.