Review – The Call

Take The Call; But Hang Up Before It’s Over

The job of a 911 operator can be a pressure cooker. Jordan Turner (Halle Berry) enjoys her job helping people and getting the right emergency personnel on the scene to solve problems; but that all changes when she takes a call from a young girl. She makes a mistake in trying to help her and leaves actively taking calls to train new employees.

While touring the center with the new recruits, Jordan has one of her probationary reps melting down while dealing with an abduction call. It’s at this point that Jordan jumps back on the phone to do what she is trained to do.

Casey Welson (Abigail Breslin) has been abducted from a mall and finds herself in the trunk of a moving car. As Jordan jumps into the call with Casey she levels her head to fight for survival. Now the two women will try anything to free Casey and bring her out of this alive. Can Jordan find and keep her wits? Can Casey keep her cool? Or will this all end in tragedy like Jordan’s last call?

The Call is the story of two movies.

The first 2/3 of the film is truly an exciting and heart-pounding thriller that will raise the hairs on your neck. The tension is amazing and the violence feels real and is quite disturbing. I didn’t expect the moments of terror that peppered the first two thirds of the film.

It was brisk and meaningful dialogue. The characters portrayed by Berry, Breslin, Chestnut and Eklund felt like they really existed.

Eklund created a bad guy that viewers could despise. He was creepy and twisted in all the right ways.

But…

And you knew there was a but…

Then there is a moment in this film where things just get ridiculously silly.  You’ll know it when you see it, but let me just say…it’s the moment Berry leaves the call center. If you would leave the movie at that point…you’d believe that you saw something that truly crept up on you and was a special movie.

The last third of the film, you really can’t excuse; I tried but failed. I’m willing to suspend belief a little…but in this case there was a film that was well crafted and decided to forget what they did so right for the first hour plus. Thrillers shouldn’t be laughable but this became a yell at the screen for not doing all the things charcters do wrong in horror/thrillers. You know the things that the movie Scream parodied? A good film shouldn’t resort to that.

So how do you grade this film? Well the first 2/3 is a solid B+ type of film…it was on the way to becoming a truly memorable thriller. But the last third was cliché and off the mark and really fell back to the D+ type of range. Sure, I’ll watch it again sometime to see if I’m being too harsh, but for now I have to make a call myself. Feel free to click take a different call after the first hour… you won’t miss much and will be happier.

C+

The Call                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

Sony Pictures

Director: Brad Anderson

Cast: Halle Berry, Abigail Breslin, Morris Chestnut, Michael Eklund

Rating: R for violence, disturbing content and some language.

Runtime: 1 hour 36 minutes