It's just another night on the job for 911 operator Jordan Turner (Halle Berry) until she gets a phone call from a girl who is home alone during a break-in. Thanks to Jordan's poor decision making, the girl is eventually kidnapped and her body turns up shortly thereafter. Six months later and Jordan has stepped away from the floor while taking on the task of training the new recruits. A panicked call leads to Jordan taking the wheel for the first time in months. A young girl has been abducted and Jordan has been knighted her only means of life support. As the case begins to unravel, Jordan begins to think that the two cases are connected and is determined not to make the same mistake twice.
With "Dead Man Down" being released last week, expectations weren't very high for "The Call" since both films are being released by WWE Studios. "The Call" nearly powers through lowered expectations in its first half though. The film starts off with what sounds like real 911 calls. The calls eventually shift from being tragic and slightly violent to pretty humorous ("I shot my wife. Yeah! She's lying on the floor!" "My uncle stabbed my mom in the leg. She's pretty pissed off.") You witness how slow Jordan's job can be and how off guard an urgent phone call can catch someone. It's like a slow burn for what's to come. Once Leah Templeton (Evie Thompson) is abducted is when the suspense crashes over you like a tsunami wave. There is so much tension in this film. The thick, tense atmosphere is what makes the film seem decent in its first half and then everything just comes to a screeching halt.
Jordan's guard is way down after her boyfriend Officer Paul Phillips (Morris Chestnut) visits her and they share a nice little canoodling moment. Thinking of what was to come later that night and the slow night at work she had had up to that point caused her to react poorly and cost Leah her life. This seems smart compared to what other people do in this film. These are the dumbest individuals to ever grace the streets of Los Angeles. If you caught a guy red-handed with a kidnapped girl in his back seat, would you honestly try to make your point with a freaking box cutter? Everybody sits around and watches and listens to Jordan's call with the current abducted girl Casey Welson (Abigail Breslin). Earlier in the film, Jordan makes it a point to say "The Hive" is what keeps the city running. That's why security is so tight. So nobody else had any emergency calls to take? There was nothing better to do?
If this is your first time seeing Michael Eklund in anything, don't write him off just yet. He's a pretty talented actor and always does a fantastic job portraying those jarring characters not many could pull off well. Do yourself a favor and watch Xavier Gens "The Divide." In the meantime, Eklund is Michael Foster; the man responsible for all of these current kidnappings and abductions. His body language and reactions are incredible, but his dialogue is really flat so it at least seems like he tried to do the best he could with what he had.
"The Call" throws logic out the window during its finale. It actually feels like it throws everything out the window and starts from scratch in its final moments as characters take things into their own hands and there's a hint of "Saw" in its conclusion. "The Call" is mostly just another predictable (you can foresee what's going to happen with your eyes closed) and generic thriller with its only unique moments resting in a certain scalp sniffing sequence.
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