Here is my review of the 2013 American psychological crime thriller film, The Call 2013. Directed by Brad Anderson, who likes to make his actors do extreme things. Christian Bale lost an absurd amount of weight for The Machinist, and in this one, there is a possibility that there are birds nesting in Halle Berry’s hair. Let’s find out.
The Call 2013 Movie Review
The Call is directed by Brad Anderson and it stars Halle Berry and Abigail Breslin. Now this movie is about a 911 dispatch operator.
She gets a 911 call one day that there is a man inside a girl’s house. She’s trying to hide from him and Halle Berry is trying to instruct her about how to be safe. That goes wrong and that disturbs Halle Berry’s character greatly.
She can’t be a dispatch operator for a while because it’s just gotten too close to her and she has to separate herself from that event.
One day she is forced to pick up the headset again and answer a call and it just so happens to be Abigail Breslin’s character who has been locked inside the trunk of a car. And Halle Berry suspects that this kidnapping could possibly be related to the first one.
Now, the trailer for this movie truly looked awful. I had no idea what to expect going into this movie because it just looked really like a made for TV movie.
And I was really surprised too because I actually love The Machinist. I thought it was an excellent Twilight Zone like thriller with a knockout performance that was sadly looked over by the Oscars by Christian Bale. But this movie just looks so cliche and silly.
And honestly, if you’ve watched the trailer for this movie, I can tell you you’ve pretty much seen the major portions of each act. So please, if you’re interested in seeing this film, do not watch the trailer because it gave away way too much.
And this film, in my opinion, is OK. It’s not terrible and it’s not that great. There are definitely moments in this movie that I was invested in where I was riveted by the action, where I was riveted by the characters, and maybe a few moments in the movie that seemed like, okay, this is actually a pretty intense scene here.
Unfortunately, I saw the trailer for the movie and I knew the ending of each scene. But it’s not just that this movie can get a little bit ludicrous.
Now, I have two friends who are actually 911 police dispatchers and I was curious about how accurate the film was and they saw the same screening with me. So after the film, I asked them how did they do?
And they said it was actually surprisingly pretty well rounded and accurate in regards to how things are. The technology was a little better for the dispatchers for what they have in the movie than what we have here in Cleveland. But they did say that it was surprisingly accurate.
And so for that reason, I got to get the film props because that’s something I wouldn’t know about since I know nothing about that. But according to my friends, the movie did a good job of handling that accurately.
So if you are a policeman or a police dispatcher or know somebody who is, you can probably watch this movie without being incredibly annoyed with all the factual errors it makes.
Halle Berry is really good in this movie. Actually, I thought she did a good job for this film. Her role requires a lot of emotion and I thought that she gave what her character needed to this movie, and I was impressed with her performance.
Now, Abigail Breslin. I do like her as an actress. I’ve liked her ever since I saw her in Signs. Little girl in Signs, a little charming, cute little girl came on screen complaining about water and it was great.
She was amazing and Little Miss Sunshine as well, Oscar-nominated role there. But in this movie, I really feel like she just overacted the entire movie and I get it. You’re in a situation where you are more than likely thinking I’m going to die.
But the way Anderson directed this movie was he got so many horrifically close-up shots, like literally with the camera bumping against her face, it was obviously right here. Her face was beginning to appear rounded, as if he was using a fisheye lens just to get like right up in her face.
And when she’s crying and whimpering and everything, it can get a little bit annoying. It just didn’t feel real. It felt extremely forced. I wouldn’t say she was terrible in the movie, I just think that she just went too far with it.
Also, the main kidnapper in this film is a disturbing, absurdly creepy man, but he’s given absolutely no real motive. You never really understand exactly what is going on with him. They never even attempt to explain it. And whenever a killer is just kind of passed off as, oh, he’s insane.
I just feel like that’s a cop out. It’s just a lazy way of writing a movie where you don’t actually give your killer any type of real motive for doing the things that he’s doing. He’s just a nut job, and I know people like that exist, but for entertainment purposes, I would have liked a more viable explanation.
The movie isn’t poorly directed, but there’s nothing terribly remarkable about it except for the fact that this guy has a good way of showing you really close-up intense images that can kind of get under your skin. He did a little bit too much though.
And I feel like Brad Anderson could have possibly held back a little bit in this movie by using the camera as a way to express intensity where he should have had the characters and the dialogue be able to express that intensity better than just kind of shoving a camera a centimeter away from the main actress’s eye.
But the call was not a terrible movie. It did feature a really good performance by Halle Berry. It had some good set pieces, some good moments where I was invested in attention.
But something I haven’t mentioned without spoiling anything is that the last 20 minutes of this movie are absurd. It loses almost all credibility that the film set up before that and it just didn’t work for me.
But overall I will say that the call is possibly a good rental just to pass the time.
I’m going to give The Call 2013 film 3/5.
Guys thank you so much for reading the review of The Call 2013 film. See you next time.
The Call 2013 Movie Trailer
Here is the trailer of The Call 2013 film. check it out.
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