It’s dialogue between a guy in a phone booth and his potential murderer that holds this movie together. The guy; a publicist who deceives people for a living; has a wife and a secret girlfriend whose lives are also on the line. At least that’s what the guy on the line tells him. He also says that if he leaves the booth, he’ll shoot him from one of the windows in one of the buildings hovering above. To show he’s really there, he takes a shot at a toy robot just outside the booth.

It’s a clever and captivating concept. The plot, which seems to run in real time, sticks with it to the end. Almost every scene takes place at the phone booth with a frequent array of shaky zoom shots and split screening for visual stimulation, but the gunman’s motive is weak. He claims to be motivated by morality and doesn’t really demand anything in exchange for his victim’s life, so the mind game he plays starts to get a little redundant after a while.

my rating : 4 of 5

2002