The advertisements for The Call made it look like a really ham-fisted and terrible thriller. But, upon closer inspection, one realizes that this is a new film from director Brad Anderson, who’s made fairly impressive stuff like Session 9 and The Machinist in the past. Given his track record, maybe it’s not as bad as it seems? Well, yes and no. From the ads you know that the basic story here is that Halle Berry is playing a 911 operator who’s traumatized because a mistake she made on a call led to a prowler getting his hands on a young victim and killing her, and eventually her mistake comes back to haunt her when she gets another call from another teen girl (Abigail Breslin) who’s being abducted by the same man. The good news is that the story takes more strange turns and goes to more entertainingly twisted places than the boring-looking ad campaign let on. The bad news is, despite Anderson’s direction, the film is not without its fair share of problems.
While Berry is a capable enough actress to anchor The Call as its lead, the supporting performances are plagued with overacting. Michael Eklund doesn’t have enough of a presence to be menacing as the killer, so he relies on going really big with his unhinged performance in order to look like a threat, and it gets a little silly. Breslin is just too hysterical as the main victim. She starts her abduction shrieking and panicking about everything, so when things get way crazier later on, and she’s still shrieking and hysterical, it’s all already become too much meaningless noise to resonate. Her character could have really engaged our sympathies if she would have showed some restraint early on and then let loose during the big moments... but alas. Acting isn’t the only place where the film falters either; the writing is really bad too. The dialogue is horrible and is awkwardly used to hammer home themes and push the plot forward with little regard to whether or not the characters are talking like real people, there are plot holes you could drive a truck through, and the film suffers from the protagonists-acting-stupid horror movie cliché worse than any other film I’ve seen in a long time.
There are pleasures to be had in it though. It builds well throughout, starting with simple abductions, heading into some harrowing murder sequences, and then going completely crazy with serial killer, horror movie nonsense in the third act. The trailers don’t quite convey how close to something like Psycho the murders in this movie get, and I think they’re robbing themselves of some potential business by making this movie look more like a generic thriller than a horror film. And, while the bad writing leads to way too many moments where you want to scream at how stupid and senseless the characters are acting, stuff like that can be a lot of fun if you’re watching in a group. Translation: see this movie with black people. The audience I saw this one with were absolutely incredulous at every new development, and their verbal displeasure made the movie way more fun than it would have been otherwise. The Call is recommended for a bad movie night, but not for much else.
