I usually like to go the theater once a week with my wife to have a date day, but my New Years resolution this year was that we were not going to the movies just for the sake of going to the movies. In other words, we were not going to go unless there was a legitimate movie to see (after Loopers, I swore it off). So I waited, and waited, and waited some more. I can’t handle it anymore; I need a fix: let’s go see The Call.
Jordan (Halle Berry) is a 911 police dispatch operator in Los Angeles that deals in everything from domestic disputes to people with bats in their house. When she receives a call from a young lady who reports that an intruder is in the house, she tries to guide her to safety, but becomes paralyzed when the young woman starts screaming. Several days later the woman is found dead and Jordan has become traumatized.
Six months pass and now Jordan has taken to teaching emergency techniques to future 911 operators. While bringing a class through the dispatch center called “The Hive,” Jordan overhears a call from an operator that she apparently can’t handle. Listening in, Jordan finds out that a girl (Abigail Breslin) is calling because she has been abducted and thrown into the trunk of a car with her cell phone still intact. Something strikes Jordan as being eerily similar to the intruder call. Do we have a serial killer here? Enough said.
This movie will keep you sitting on your hands the entire movie. There are no places in it where you will say to yourself, “Get on with it.” That being said, this is not for the squeamish ─ it is literally “hairy.” There were parts of it where the whimpering annoyed me, because it went on an on; but I guess that happens when you get locked in a trunk and you think you’re going to die. Overall, I was pleasantly surprised by the movie and I give it solid “thumbs up.” See it.
My Rating: 3 out 5 Scalpels.
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