The Call

The first half of the film I'd genuinely give a 10/10, the second half would be more a 6/10.

The first forty five minutes had me utterly gripped and on the edge of my seat, it was exactly what you want from a thriller. The second half becomes a more bog standard thriller, dare I say it, it becomes somewhat silly, the ending is too much.

Berry is terrific, I am such a fan of hers, sadly her character transforms into something a little silly. The villain is rather good, I only wish we got to learn a little of his motivation, sadly they didn't explore it.

It's watchable. 8/10

I really like the first half, it keeps you involved but second half has unnecessary plot. Ending could have been different.

The movie started off strong with a great premise, great characters, and a great story. It was all extremely tense and clever. The character was also extremly sympathetic and well developed. It was actually one of the best thrillers I've ever seen and with such a high concept idea. But the third act- it was awful. I have no idea what the writers were thinking. It went from a perfectly good thriller to a cliche gore fest. The third act completely made no sense, erased all previous characters and their development, and dragged on for way too long. The longer it went on the more I hated the entire story arc. Seriously, it gets more ridiculous and ridiculous by the second- as id it was written by two different people. The final line in the movie is so cringey and awful as well. I would have preferred just "the Hive" setting for the entire film. What a disappointment.

Jordan Turner (Halle Berry) is a skilled 911 operator. She gets a call from Casey Welson (Abigail Breslin) who has an intruder in the house. She tries to hide but she taken when Jordan reconnects after getting disconnected. Michael Foster (Michael Eklund) is a serial killer with a fetish for hair.

This is a great little thriller. It moves along well. The story is logical. Halle Berry may have overacted on a couple of occasions but her location keeps the movie restrained. Overall, this is a great little thriller until the last 20 minutes or so. The ending is pulled right out of a different movie. It tries to ramp up to a slasher porn horror. It doesn't make sense that Jordan would go there. It's too convenient and ill conceived. Before it turned, it's an 8 but 6 is all I have left for it.

"The Call" is a tidy little thriller, modeled, in large part, on the movie "Speed." Halle Berry plays the Southern California 911 dispatcher who's in a race against the clock to rescue a teenage girl (Abigail Breslin) locked in the trunk of a serial killer (Michael Eklund).

Director Brad Anderson keeps the action going at a breakneck pace, providing pulse-pounding, edge-of-the-seat suspense that helps us to overlook the stray inconsistency and implausibility that wander into the narrative, particularly towards the end (the movie doesn't entirely escape the Third Act curse common to the genre). There's also an unfortunate tendency towards the sadistic that spoils some of the fun.

The really distinctive feature is that writer Richard D'Ovidio has made Jordan, the dispatcher, a compelling, easily identifiable figure by emphasizing not only her strength and craftiness but her insecurity and self-doubt as she does her best to assist people in making it through sometimes unimaginable crises.

The movie is a bit overwrought at times (again, looking at you, last half hour) and it ultimately succumbs to too many serial-killer clichés, but "The Call" is a whole lot better than many of the more highly publicized, big-budget thrillers of recent times.