Phone Booth: Underrated Early 2000s Brilliance

The late Joel Schumacher's psychological thriller deserves to be remembered by more people, and here's why.

Phone Booth's theatrical release poster in 2003. Photo: 20th Century Fox

Phone Booth is just Die Hard, but in a phone booth. It's a simplistic way to describe the 2002 psychological thriller, directed by the late Joel Schumacher and starring Colin Farrell and Kiefer Sutherland, but it’s an apt one. It’s not a criticism either, as many films seen as ‘Die Hard in X location’, like Con Air, Speed, and The Rock, can stand out as more than just supposed Die Hard clones, and have held up quite well. Phone Booth does not have as high a reputation, but it arguably deserves to be in the same conversation as those films. Phone Booth is a highly entertaining and possibly underrated film, the result of a script that was more than 30 years in the making, and it merits a greater following and reputation than it currently has.

Phone Booth focuses on Farrell’s Stuart 'Stu' Shephard, an arrogant and dishonest publicist planning an affair with a client behind his wife’s back. His use of a public phone booth to contact said client ultimately lands him in a life-threatening situation, where, after answering a ringing phone, he finds that he will die if he hangs up, courtesy of Sutherland’s unseen malevolent killer, ‘The Caller’ and his trusty sniper rifle. That’s as simple a premise as Phone Booth needs. Practically most of its 81-minute runtime is spent inside and around that phone booth, and sticking to that single location works wonders for the film’s suspense and tension. When done well, films that primarily take place in a single location can be wonderful, and Phone Booth is arguably one of the best in this specific sub-genre of films.

The film’s history extends quite far for what most would consider a simple mid-budget film. In the 1960s, Larry Cohen pitched the late Alfred Hitchcock an idea for a film set entirely within a telephone booth and told in real-time. Hitchcock liked the idea, but the project did not progress because both men could not come up with a plot that explained why the action had to be confined to one location. Eventually, in the late 1990s, nearly twenty years after Hitchcock's death, Cohen found a solution involving a sniper forcing the protagonist to remain inside the phone booth, and he was able to write a script. For the late Cohen, it was a project 30 years in the making, and it was undoubtedly a story worth telling.

One of Phone Booth’s main strengths is its runtime. It achieves a lot within its brief 81-minute runtime, courtesy of its quick pacing, which makes it a lesser-known example of why films don’t necessarily need to be two hours long. Phone Booth doesn’t drag its premise out thanks to its short length; it’s quick and simple, and it works effectively. That quickness could also be applied to Phone Booth’s principal photography, which was completed in ten days, and was made possible by adopting French hours, a work schedule that skips the typical one-hour production shutdown for the lunch break, in exchange for food being available the whole shooting day. This quickness in both the film's pacing and the filming process highlights Phone Booth's brevity, making it more appealing to watch or rewatch at any given point.

The direction and performances in this film are also incredibly fitting, even though the combination of Joel Schumacher and Colin Farrell could not have happened. Various actors found Larry Cohen’s script appealing, including Tom Cruise, Will Smith, and Jim Carrey (who was originally cast as Stu but dropped out because he didn’t feel comfortable with the role), but Farrell was ultimately cast. Several directors were also considered, such as Mel Gibson, Steven Spielberg, and Michael Bay. However, the latter was removed from consideration after, according to Cohen, the first question asked about the script was "OK, how do we get this thing out of the damn telephone booth?" Schumacher, who at this stage of his career was recovering from 1997’s poorly received Batman & Robin by directing three films released between 1999 and 2000, was reunited with Farrell, whom he had directed in 2000’s Tigerland. He is clearly camping it up as director, with numerous inserts, effects, and camera movements used together to maximise the tension as Farrell’s Stu begins to feel more enclosed in his phone booth as a crowd gathers around him.

Colin Farrell as Stu Shephard. Photo: 20th Century Fox

Farrell’s captivating performance works well as an inherently dislikeable publicist who must realise the error of his ways before it's too late. However, as good as this central performance is, it’s unwise to say this film wouldn’t work if the Caller weren’t an intimidating presence. Thankfully, Kiefer Sutherland's assassin has that intimidating presence, with his oddly terrifying laughter, heightening the growing sense of panic as the film progresses. He’s having a blast messing with Stu like he's some puppet on a string, controlling his every move unless poor Stu wants to get a nice bullet lodged in his brain. However, Sutherland wasn't the original actor for The Caller that the filmmakers used during filming. Filming for Phone Booth was done with Ron Eldard cast in the role instead, with Eldard delivering his performance from the window of a building across the street from the phone booth where Farrell was during filming. The role ended up being recast, with Sutherland rerecording all of The Caller’s lines, after Cohen told Schumacher that Eldard's "voice lacked the mesmerising tone" that Cohen wanted.

To summarise, Phone Booth is excellent and deserves to be remembered more fondly, even with the generally positive reviews and box-office success it attained upon release in 2003 (originally it was meant to release in November 2002, but the Beltway sniper attacks in Washington D.C. the previous month prompted the release to be delayed). It boasts captivating performances, palpable tension, intentionally dizzying direction, and is, above all else, incredibly entertaining. With a short run time and plenty of aforementioned reasons why the film works, Phone Booth is one of the standout films in Joel Schumacher’s filmography, and is undoubtedly a lot more than just Die Hard in a phone booth.