Skinner rolled over in his grave when they printed the word 'psychological' on this

Back to the good old days ladies and gentlemen-- this bad movie review comes based solely on a terribly boring sounding plot. Phone Booth tells the story of a guy who's trapped inside of a phone booth, forced to try and get money for an extortionist while a sniper has his sights on him. Sounds like our whole movie will be on the street looking at a phone booth. They brag that the flick was shot in 10 days, but since they shot on scene in New York City, they damn well had better have gotten it done in 10 days. It's a bustling city, ya know? We have a narrator that tells us statistics on cell phone and phone booth usage. It's pretty lame, but it does. The shooting is pretty foul from the get-go-- picture in picture and stuff... that's lame.

Colin Farrell is our star, who we know from... I gotta look him up. HOLY CRAP-- he's gonna be in the Miami Vice remake-- what a lame-o. All I know is he's irish and his New York accent is so thick and fake that it's making me sick. Oh, he was in SWAT too. Greg and I LOVED that movie. Screw Colin Farrell-- we love Forest Whitaker, who looks like the cop of the movie. Keifer Sutherland is apparently the voice on the phone too, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Funny fact: Phone Booth was written by Larry Cohen, the same guy who wrote the story for Cellular, the later phone-triller that had basically the same 'don't hang up' idea to it.

OH GEEZE! Here's the end of the movie-- freakin' Katie Holmes is in it. She's total trash, isn't she? She's got this squealy voice in this one, and the Butafuco mouth. Anyway, she's gone now. Thank goodness. So the phone rings, he picks it up, then has an exchange with the caller, then stands by the phone until it rings again. He had plenty of time to leave, but he didn't, so he gets no pity for the rest of the movie.

So far, I was right, despite some snappy cuts and angles, this is shaping up to be a snoozer. WE WANT FOREST! WE WANT FOREST! This came fresh off the heels of Panic Room for Forest Whitaker. That was a good movie. Edge of your seat excitement, fantastic violin-driven score, interesting and unique plot. It was no Phone Booth. But Forest needs work like anybody else, right? So Colin, or Stu, is forced to tell his wife and girlfriend that he's cheating on them, while two scantly clad women bang to get into the phone booth. The plot progresses, sure, but it's slow and not very exciting. Though I'm waiting...

So the caller's aiming a rifle at Stu and trying to scare him. Apparently this guy's done it before, so we know he's capable of it. Of course this is the stupid part. People are giving Stu crap for not getting off the phone and letting the strippers use it. Why they can't use the one in the club they strip at is some confusing ass stuff, but one thing's certain: those strippers are some of the most annoying women in the world. Anyway, the bouncer comes in with a bat, the caller shoots him, and now all the cops came.

The cops believed the strippers so they think Stu is a threat. Of course the guy was shot from behind, so it only makes sense that they believe the ladies. Enter FOREST! Whoooo. He tries to negotiate with Stu, but the caller won't let Stu say too much. Now that Forest is there, we have some action, but we're still watching a phone booth with an unlikable protagonist and a more-likable caller on the phone. No worry though, we'll just roll with it. In bad movie crossover trivia, the second cop in command, Sergeant Cole, played by Richard T. Jones, was one of the twelve in 1995's pivotal Jury Duty.

So Stu tries to convince the ol' caller that he can be famous if he gives up, but it was useless, so he's stuck in the phone booth still. Apparently the plot's been unnecessarily tainted by giving Forest Whitaker some past. He got someone else killed in bad negotiation in the past or something. It didn't have to be done, we liked him and are pulling for him from the start. Everyone else in the movie is vile and despicable.

So I got distracted and screwed around on imdb.com for a while, but what you missed is Stu coming clean to the misses and he hung up the phone. After that, the phone rang and the sniper had aim on ol' Stu's wife. He picked up the phone too, but that's because he's stupid. He'd say it's because he didn't want his wife shot though. Po-tay-toe, po-ta-toe, right? So then, the ol' Katie Holmes shows up. I hate her. This movie's getting pretty lame(r). Now, Forest has a leg up. He gets the whole sniper/caller thing and then starts to set the wheels in motion.

So Forest makes things go along and the caller makes more stupid threats and there's a gun in the phone booth, but if Stu moves for it he gets shot by the cops. This is all a mess of cliches and unlikables brought together by a phone booth. A phone booth? Remember at the end of Saw, when you went, "Oooh. That makes sense." Here you don't do that. Our 'killer' doesn't make sense. He's some nut with a rifle, no way does he have a purpose or anything. You get ripped off. Wanna know why?

Let's get this out of the way first: Phone Booth has a 7.3 star rating today on imdb.com, and I can only suspect this is because audiences have been deprived of quality techno-thrillers (yes, this counts as a techno-thriller because they're using technology) for just about all of eternity. Remember The Net? Sandra Bullock... pshh.

Stu gets shot and the cops don't find the killer. They find some shmo who got his throat cut, so they instinctively think, "Oh, in desperation the guy cut his own throat." These are the WORST cops in movie history. Car 54, Where Are You? They're moonlighting in Phone Booth (all except Forest-- don't you dare diss Forest Whitaker). So Stu's in an ambulance and truly believes that his killer was the guy whose throat is cut, who was the pizza guy, and he doesn't even see Keifer Sutherland coming from around the corner of the back door. When the credits roll, we should be saying, "Wow... that was deep. He's like a bad disciplinarian, just trying to make the world better, but going about it all wrong. Instead we go, "What ever happened to The Lost Boys, Keif?! Remember when you didn't suck that one time?! Shit!"