('Phone Booth' -- R)

It had potential. "Phone Booth" could have been a good movie, possibly. The basic premise is a snotty, small-time publicist with a big head and basic disrespect for humanity is trapped inside a phone booth by a sniper wanting to either kill him or change his life forever. Kiefer Sutherland plays the "voice" on the phone -- the sniper -- and successfully comes across as a psychopath. Colin Farrell's performance is very intense and he displays his acting chops very well. Yet, he is dragged down by the extra fluff of police attempting to deal with this situation. The cops are laughably horrible actors, and there are so many cheesy lines I almost lost it. Forest Whitaker is a source of unintentional comic relief as he weakly plays the depressed police chief. \nThe plot is original, and it seems to be a good idea at first. But then it starts to drag on and begins tripping over itself with lame attempts at subplots. The strongest element of the movie is the cinematography, chock full of entertaining, intelligent camera angles and crazy split screens. \nThe DVD itself is about as weak as the movie, featuring a commentary from only director Joel Schumacher, the trailer and another trailer for a new, drugged-out "Empire Records"-ish movie with no clear relation to anything. As my viewing buddy said, "This movie is not very entertaining at all"