The Call, from director Brad Anderson, is a mostly effective thriller despite some minor objections. Centered on a strong performance by Halle Berry as a 911 operator, we get a behind-the-scenes look at the LAPD’s 911-nerve system (known in the film as “the hive”). Early on, a psycho abducts a teen girl, and Berry’s Jordan Turner is left in the middle. The problem, we later learn, is 911 operators rarely know how the events they dispatch police, fire, animal control, etc. to end. It’s easy to get haunted by the fate of your PR (lingo for Person Reporting) and after this first abduction Jordan witnesses, she is reassigned as a trainer.
Cut to several months later: Casey Welson (Abigail Breslin, all grown up) is abducted from a shopping mall, thrown in a trunk of a red Toyota Camry and luckily has been left with the pre-paid cell phone of her BFF. Casey is smart, ambitious and a Capricorn (like Jordan, she’s reassured Capricorns are fighters, and she follows through with that notion). The film is quite a contained thriller until its third act. We know what the characters know when they know it and Anderson is good at focusing in on the very small details. Employing a technique that is at once a little obvious but also functions as memory works. he focuses in on the tiniest detail, although sometimes he lacks the restraint this subjective technique requires.
Still, The Call (also not a great title) is a taut thriller, one that’s well-crafted, paced, edited, performed and engaging as a procedural. The problem is (and I caution you with a slight spoiler alert) the third act aims to please, also while setting the film up for an inevitable sequel should this one find success. It just might — I imagine this being the word of mouth film that trickles down from urban audiences to small town second run theaters, the kind of movie that gets buzz that garners it attention and staying power.
Anderson has, in my book, always been an underappreciated filmmaker from his delightful and neurotic romantic comedies Next Stop Wonderland and Happy Accidents to his chilling turn as a horror and thriller director (with Session 9, The Machinist and Transsiberian). The Call, in its third act, makes two mistakes I’m willing to forgive: deadliest of which is that Jordan breaks character almost to the point of no return (she could even use a little more development, but the story is so engaging in the now we forget) and the sexualization of a girl who is still quite young is off-putting (really, does she need to be in a bra for much of the third act?).
Filmmaking is a medium of choices and for much of The Call, the right one is made. Anderson has made a few excellent films in the past (as well as has some solid TV credits to his name), and while The Call probably gives the audience what it wants, which is a trade-off for box office success. It teeters on the edge of something truly darker and succeeds going a little farther than some filmmakers might have, but unfortunately takes a major step back with its faulty ending.
The Call is now in wide release.