THE CALL
US, 2013, 94 minutes, Colour.
Halle Berry, Abigail Breslin, Morris Chestnut, Michael Eklund, Roma Maffia.
Directed by Brad Anderson.
For the most part, this is quite an engrossing thriller, some echoes of Psycho. The two central characters are women and watching and experiencing their ordeals will probably be more intense for women in the audience rather than for men. While it is a police drama, the central character is employed for answering 911 calls, some of which are quite tough and harrowing for the operative, emotionally demanding and draining. The victim is a teenager abducted from a mall car park and subjected to violence and some mental and physical torture. In the US, it was released not long before the rescue of three women who had been abducted in their teens and held prisoner in a Cleveland house for ten years.
The film opens very interestingly with views of Los Angeles before going into the key room where the 911 calls are answered. It gives quite a picture of those staffing the phones, of what is required of them, skills in talking to upset callers, typing in information, enabling police to identify callers, bring up their photos as well as tracing car number plates and finding addresses and information as well as doing fingerprint checks.
The first episode has Jordan (Halle Berry) working with a young girl while an intruder is in the house. The case ultimately leads to failure when the mobile phone cuts out and Jordan makes a connection, the intruder still being in the house rather than outside which was presumed. This has quite an emotional effect on Jordan. She does get good support from other workers and her supervisor.
She becomes a trainer. But, while she is showing the interns around, another call comes in from another teenager (Abigail Breslin) and the core of the film is Jordan keeping Casey on line, advising her on how to knock out lights on the boot of the car where the abductor has put her, pour paint out the hole… But, she has a temporary mobile which can’t immediately be traced. And so, the search for the suspect involves police, some concerned citizens on the freeway and Jordan using her wits to encourage Casey to fight.
It is only gradually that we see the face and then the whole person of the abductor who then becomes more desperate and more impulsively violent.
When Jordan is told to stand down and rest, she doesn’t (of course) and then goes out in search of Casey. While mobile phones are key to the process, there are a few inconsistencies in their use (leaving a message on a phone which we have seen receives no signal, and Jordan (of course) dropping it a crucial moment.
While the confrontation is tense and an exercise in using wits, it is the final key moment that jars. It is emotionally comprehensible, but morally…?
Strange how a final minute of a film can change a moral perspective and what has been a satisfying thriller leaves the audience cheering (when it shouldn’t) or aghast at the decision Jordan and Casey make.
1. An interesting thriller? Psychological thriller? Victims? Serial killer? Different perspectives? The world of 911?
2. Los Angeles, the city, the vistas, buildings and lights? Surveillance? The city itself, the 911 office, apartments? The suburbs, the deserts, the mountains? The freeways?
3. The atmosphere, the style of photography, editing and pace, musical score?
4. The title, the introduction to 911 and the staff? Information, photos, dates, addresses? Printouts? Cars and license plate numbers?
5. Introduction to Jordan, her work, her position, supervisor, her cases?
6. The visuals of the case, the intruder, the teenage girl, the house, her hiding, phoning 911, Jordan’s suggestions and reassuring her, her following them, the breaking transmission, Jordan’s mistake in ringing again? The killer hearing the phone, finding the girl, and acting her? Jordan upset, going to the quiet room, discussions with her supervisor?
7. Supervision of the workers on the floor? The supervisor and her following cases, concern, support? The fellow workers, the woman with the shaven head, the worker in the wheelchair…?
8. Paul, his role in the police force, relationship with Jordan, the talking, sexual relationship, support?
9. The news, the information about the death of the girl, Jordan upset?
10. Six months later, the interns, the tour, the questions, the young woman with the case, making a mistake? Avoiding emotional detachment?
11. Jordan taking up the case, the interns listening, their going away, Jordan involved? Making up for the previous case?
12. Casey and her friend at the mall, typical teenagers, the chatter, bravado, Casey as more staid and traditional, the phones, calling her mother? The indication that she was being stalked?
13. The car park, her being watched, taken, the chloroform, in the boot of the car, with her phone?
14. The abductor, the audience not seeing him immediately, gradual revelation, from a suspect to a person?
15. Casey, upset, inexperience, Jordan’s advice, to be strong, fighting back, knocking out the lights, pouring the paint at the hole?
16. The mother phoning the police about the hole in the car, information about location, impossible to find it from the mobile phone, the maps, the photos of Casey, the number plate? Stolen car?
17. The stranger, observing the car and the paint, following the driver, the reaction, going off the freeway, the discussion, the killer stabbing him, putting him in the boot, his death? Jordan hearing this?
18. The police surveillance, chase, the helicopter?
19. The service station, filling up the car, the man, his suspicions, the killer turning the petrol on him and the fire?
20. The name of the killer, Michael Foster, his treatment of Casey, brutish?
21. The location, the story of arson in the past, the chime, its being recorded?
22. Paul, the contact, finding the house, confronting the wife, her being in denial, leaving the mobile message?
23. Jordan, finishing, urged to go home, listening to the records, deciding to go out, finding of the location?
24. Michael Foster and the underground, under the destroyed house? His motivations, his sister, the photos, her illness, her death? His medical work?
Medical centre? Using girls who resembled her? The echoes of Psycho?
25. Jordan, the trapdoor, dropping her mobile, no signal, searching the basement, eerie, her seeing Foster, the suspense?
26. The confrontation, the violence, getting Casey and free?
27. The ending, tying up Foster, using his own phrase about his being too late, the locked doors, Casey to say she escaped? Leaving him to his fate? A vigilante ending?
