‘The Call’ (2013) Movie Review – Jordan, a 911 operator whose mistake leads in the death of a teenager, is given the opportunity to redeem herself when she receives a call from an abducted girl. Jordan puts her previous experience to good use in order to save the girl’s life.
Release date: 5 April 2013
Director: Brad Anderson
Story by: Richard D’Ovidio; Nicole D’Ovidio; Jon Bokenkamp
Box office: $68.6 million
Writers: Richard D’Ovidio(screenplay)Nicole D’Ovidio(story)Jon Bokenkamp(story)
Stars: Halle BerryEvie ThompsonAbigail Breslin
‘The Call,’ directed by Brad Anderson of ‘The Machinist,’ is a 2013 abduction thriller film. Jordan (Halle Berry), an emergency call operator at the Hive, is the protagonist of the plot. Jordan feels unsure of herself after making a call with fatal consequences. When another such call comes over her radar, she must take note and rush against the clock to apprehend a horrible murderer.
A potential serial killer is loose in the city, and he isn’t messing around. Freeze frames heighten the tension, as the film depicts a bleak and grimy Los Angeles rarely seen on screen. While the director believes that some aspects are better left to speculation, the finale provides fulfilment. Allow us to assist you if you want to learn more about the story’s finale.
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‘The Call’ (2013) Movie Plot Synopsis
At the Hive, the day is frenetic as operators respond to distress calls. Jordan Turner is a seasoned operator who answers Leah Templeton’s call. When Leah’s parents are away, someone has broken into her Hancock Park home.
The thief enters via the window, and Leah flees to her upstairs bedroom, which has an unlocked door. Jordan instructs Leah to leave the room and hide on the window ledge. The burglar flees for a brief while, but an eager call from Jordan prompts him to return, revealing Leah.
The police continue their search for Leah the next morning, and Jordan is unable to forgive herself for her error. They discover Leah’s body buried in a Lancaster field. Casey Nelson (Abigail Breslin) goes out shopping with a companion in the downtown mall Shopping Plaza in a different incident.
The friend, on the other hand, needs to pick up her brother from school and must go early. Casey is heading to the underground parking to get her car out when a motorist unexpectedly reverses, shattering her phone. The driver gets out of the car and throws Casey in the trunk the next thing we know.
Casey dials 911, but the phone is an old disposable model that the authorities are unable to track down. Jordan overhears her colleague on the distress call while giving a lesson to the apprentices. Jordan interrupts Casey’s talk by asking him to open a tail light. A passer-by gives away the location when Casey follows the instructions and waves her hand.
They travel north on Highway 170, turning right onto Fernando Boulevard. While Jordan is on the phone, Officer Paul Phillips, Jordan’s love companion, comes to the girl’s aid. Meanwhile, they discover that Casey’s kidnapper was also responsible for Leah’s death.
‘The Call’ (2013) Movie Review
“The Call” begins with a bird’s-eye view of the city and a montage of operators taking 911 calls, some of which are humorous and others of which are serious. The movie then jumps immediately into building up the plot, which is swiftly paced, to begin with. Berry responds to a home invasion call from a teen girl and makes a slight but important error, resulting in the girl’s kidnapping. Her body is discovered the next day in a shallow burial.
Berry’s coworkers don’t hold her responsible for the blunder, but she does retire from answering calls in order to focus on training new operators. Six months later, she’s leading a group of trainees on their first tour of the Hive when she receives a call from a teenage girl (Abigail Breslin) who has been kidnapped and is being held captive in a car trunk. When the operator who answers the phone doesn’t know what to do, veteran Berry reluctantly takes over.
Breslin reveals that she was abducted from a mall parking lot by an unknown man, and that her trunk has a spade, implying that her kidnapper plans to kill and bury her. Of course, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the man who snatched Breslin is the same man who kidnapped and murdered the teen girl six months ago.
He’s a classic oddball serial-killer type, played by a twitchy, hammy Michael Eklund. He like corny music (when Breslin wakes up in his trunk, Taco’s “Puttin’ on the Ritz” is booming). He’s jittery and easily frightened. He seemed to be unprepared for a person who has a full subterranean bunker dedicated to tormenting blonde teenagers.
The mobile phone Breslin is phoning from is at the heart of “The Call’s” premise. It’s one of those pay-as-you-go disposables, so the call centre won’t be able to track it down. In addition, the car is moving, and neither Breslin nor Berry can pinpoint her exact location. Aside from the technical difficulty (disposable telephones may be traced), it’s a fun cat-and-mouse premise: Breslin and Berry must work together to outsmart the serial killer without knowing where he is or where he’s going.
This notion could be pulled off with a little filmmaking imagination and a good grasp of form. “The Call” unfortunately lacks both. Much of the film is uninteresting and flat. The continuous pictures of Berry at her desk, yelling and crying into a headset, become tedious. The idea suggests claustrophobia, Berry is trapped at her desk, while Breslin is trapped in the trunk but “The Call” is too spatially jumbled to be terrifying.
Thrillers don’t happen by itself; it’s a genre where a lack of style equals a lack of entertainment. Anderson tries to add some fancy flourishes, such as freeze-frames, but they only serve to suggest that a filmmaker is overcomplicating a simple task.
“The Call” parallels Joel Schumacher’s “Phone Booth” (2002) in many respects, another film with a good, straightforward premise that is destroyed by execution (interestingly, Schumacher was originally slated to direct “The Call”).
“Phone Booth,” on the other hand, was at least campy enough to be entertaining. The most “The Call” can muster is Eklund’s bug-eyed performance, which is more freaked-out acid causality than calculated psychopath.
Who Is the Serial Killer in ‘The Call’ Movie?
To give you a quick reminder of what happens in the middle, Jordan first asks Casey to leave a trail on the road with the white paint in the trunk. The killer is warned about the “leaking” paint by a good Samaritan who can’t detect the trace in the sky.
The assailant makes a sharp right turn and comes to a halt in a parking lot. The Samaritan (later identified as Alan Denado by the database) approaches the killer and inquires if anything is wrong. While the man, still dubious, dials 911, the killer assures him of the mess in the trunk.
The killer, on the other hand, abducts him and his vehicle, abandoning the red Camry, which was originally registered to an older adult. When Alan regains consciousness and begins screaming, the predator emerges and stabs him numerous times while Jordan is on the phone. He then pulls off to the side of the road to fill up the tank.
Casey emerges from the trunk through the front door, requesting assistance from the gas station employee. The killer, on the other hand, pours oil on the attendant and sets him on fire.
He takes Casey to a secret place after killing these two people. “It’s already over,” he says as he hangs up the phone, reminding Jordan of Leah’s death. Paul, on the other hand, retrieves the coffee cup from the Camry and discovers the killer’s fingerprint ID.
Michael Lewis Foster, the killer, was arrested for arson in 1995, when he allegedly set fire to his own home at 1765 Oakcreek Lane in the Santa Clarita Hills. However, the barn next door may have been where the killer took his victim.
How Does Jordan Locate the Killer’s Residence? Who Is the Girl in Michael’s House Photos?
Around the perimeter, police set up obstacles. Jordan, on the other hand, is unable to exit the Hive after hearing the message, “It’s already over.” Her employer tells her that she has followed every process, as the memory of Leah’s call returns to her. Some things appear to be out of our control.
Jordan, on the other hand, intensifies the audio of the dialogue from a few seconds before, and she hears a slight clicking sound nearby. With this information, she sets the GPS for Michael’s Oakcreek Lane home, determined to save Casey from the killer’s grasp. Paul comes upon the black Lincoln on the side of the road in a separate incident.
He is unaware, however, that Jordan is in the killer’s lair. She walks over to the red-brick house, which appears to be deserted. Jordan, on the other hand, discovers multiple images of a girl that resembles Casey, the PR (person reporting). For the time being, the photographs are useless, but the US flag in the courtyard might provide a hint.
Jordan discovers the sound coming from a metal disc attached to the flag and discovers a path beneath it. Jordan peers through a crack in the wardrobe to uncover the killer’s strategy. The killer removes the hair and follicles from the victims’ brains, most likely because his sister, the girl in the photo, had a malignant disease (perhaps cancer) that resulted in hair loss. For all we know, she could be dead. It’s possible that the incestuous brother’s psychosis is triggered by the death of his sister.
Is Michael Die at the End of the Movie?
Jordan emerges from hiding with a cracking hit to Michael’s skull as Michael continues to perform the surgery on Casey. Casey stabs Michael with a medical scissor as Michael attempts to immerse Jordan in the neighbouring bathtub. Jordan flees for her life as a result of the distraction, and Michael pursues her. Casey slips the scissor through Jordan’s back before the killer can damage him as they emerge from the underground dungeon.
Jordan ties Michael to a chair in the final scene, taunting her that she lacks the courage to do awful things because she is the operator. Jordan and Casey, on the other hand, leave after tying Michael, and Casey uses Michael’s humour against him, resulting in poetic retribution.
We don’t think Michael will be able to endure the confinement for long without food or drink when they seal the door. If Jordan tells Paul about her journey, Michael could wind up in prison, which we don’t think is likely.
Conclusion
Even by exploitation film standards, the climax is ridiculous and morally dubious. It does, however, provide Anderson the opportunity to do what he does best: orchestrate gloomy, claustrophobic terror. “The Call” rises above hackwork during the last fifteen minutes or so. Regrettably, it does not soar very high.
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