In The Call, Halle Berry plays Jordan Turner, a veteran 911 operator who makes a grievous error during an abduction attempt that costs a teenager her life. Unable to accept her failure or allow herself to be in a position to handle life or death situations again, she takes a job training newcomers. Months later, she’s showing a group of greenhorns the ropes when a call comes in about another abduction. The operator at the station where the group is standing panics, and Turner takes over. During the ensuing call, she hears something that tells her the man abducting the girl is the same one as before.
Coincidence? You bet. The Call is awash in them, as if it takes place in an alternate universe in which clues and events align like stars to help heroes save the day. There’s the cell phone the girl manages to keep in her possession through the kidnapping, an escape attempt, and a change in vehicles, among other sundry episodes. She has to hold on to the phone because it’s her link to Turner, and therefore her life, but I doubt such a feat would be possible in real life. There are the police, who abandon a potential crime scene, allowing Turner to scour the area only a few hours later. And there’s the dubious metallic clanging, which was an even more unlikely coincidence than the cell phone never leaving the girl’s grip.
Perhaps you’re thinking I’m being too hard on The Call. We generally go to the movies to escape the world, not to immerse ourselves in realistic scenarios. Moreover, I didn’t complain about the unlikelihood of a tornado transporting a hot air balloon to an alternate realm ruled by witches when I reviewed Oz the Great and Powerful last week. And as a thriller, The Call should be allowed certain liberties in the interest of fun.
All good points. But The Call does more than take a few liberties; it throws common sense out the window and runs with reckless abandon toward its conclusion.
Thankfully, The Call also provides a few pleasures along the way, not the least of which is one of Berry’s best on-screen performances. I know she won an Academy Award for Monster’s Ball, but I like the believability she brings to the role of Turner. As the movie careens from one happy accident to another, her emotionally grounded performance keeps things from soaring off the tracks. Turner is the kind of person who becomes emotionally invested in her work, to the degree of putting a romantic relationship on hold. This lends an air of credibility to her decision to pursue the abducted girl and her potential killer outside of work. Berry made me believe in Turner as a person, which in turn helped me to forgive some of the movie’s outlandish moments.
I also liked actor Michael Eklund’s performance as Michael Foster, the twisted sock who abducts the girl and plans to kill her. He conveys the mental state of a sick individual with the same believability Berry brings to her role. His eyes appear to be only slightly looking at things, his mouth perpetually hangs in a half-gape, and his mind seems to be continually grinding on a seed that refuses to break. Even during his pensive moments, you can see the tension and mounting desperation simmering beneath his skin. Eklund also pulls off the scenes in which Foster loses it without going over the top, which shows control.
Other things will make The Call entertaining for people who like thrillers and don’t mind a movie that plays loosely with reality. Once Foster abducts the second girl, the action never stops, but instead builds in intensity until literally the final shot. Also, the high tech interior of the 911 call center made for some nice photography. And director Bran Anderson pulls of some really good moments, my favorite of which was a tight close-up of Foster clicking his teeth together. The sound gradually deepens until it resembles a slowly ticking clock.
Unfortunately, for every shot I liked, Anderson delivered a poorly staged head scratcher, like the scene in which Foster kills someone at the far end of a busy parking lot and in plain view of everyone passing by on the interstate. Maybe Anderson’s point is that evil is all around us, but we don’t take the time to see it, at our own peril. Or maybe he was just shooting with reckless abandon.
Rated R for violence, disturbing content and language. Two stars out of four.