"The Call has solid chunks where the phrase edge-of-your-seat is for once accurate and nail-biting terror has been created without the use of explosions or clichés"

Actually thrilling thriller’s are a rare breed nowadays. Having explosions and life or death situations pushed on you constantly tends to lower your expectations and thrillers end up being dull. Is The Call any different? In a way, yes. The Call is a venture from WWE studios, yes that’s correct, the wrestling company. This doesn’t really make any difference to the film but it does mean that you have to endure David Otunga’s (a WWE wrestler) forceful dialogue as he more than a minor role.

The Call is Halle Berry’s first film that shows promise since her infamous run of dud’s since her Oscar win. She plays a 911 operator who does her job well, until she unwittingly makes a mistake and a young girl ends up dead. Berry plays the blue-collar worker with a heart of gold well, her performance isn’t cheesy it’s real and you genuinely feel her anguish as she realizes that another girl may end up dead.

Whilst Berry hangs up her 911 headset and opts for teaching new operators, on the other side of town smart and sensible Casey Welson (Abigail Breslin) is getting bungled into the trunk of a car. As luck would have it Breslin has her friends cheap and unfortunately untraceable mobile in her pocket, her one lifeline and her connection to the outside world. Realising that she needs to help, Berry returns to her duty as operator to rectify her past mistake and has to solve a puzzle of Breslin whilst she motors across the city.

Director Brad Anderson knows how to write a thriller. The Call has solid chunks where the phrase edge-of-your-seat is for once accurate and nail-biting terror has been created without the use of explosions or clichés. It’s a shame that after an hour of perfectly executed suspense The Call takes a side road down ‘god-awful horror movie clichés’ and has a spectacularly bad ending. The villain whom before was nicely mysterious and your mind guessed his sinister plans turns into a nutty maniac for no rhyme or reason. By the end you see that director Anderson is trying to create some kind of badly planned feminist angle by having Abigail Breslin in her bra for the last half of the film kind of puts a dampner on it.

The Call, one of the most promising starts to a film and a specular fall into pointlessness.