15 Great Movie Villains Who Totally Stole The Show
4. The Caller - Phone Booth
Nobody wants to go into a phone booth any more as they're basically toilets for drunks. Attitudes were apparently different in 2002 when sleazy publicist Stu Shepard (Colin Farrell) decided to use the last phone booth in New York to call his mistress. After he hangs up from his philandering phone antics a call comes through which he decides to answer it for the hell of it. This was a mistake for reasons far more concerning than the inevitable smell of urine as he soon finds himself in the sights of a madman who instils morality in people by shooting them with a sniper rifle. This trigger-happy defender of ethics and honesty forces Stu to play a sinister game of Simon Says with requests delivered in the dulcet tones of Kiefer Sutherland.
While it's fun to imagine that this is a world in which Jack Bauer has gone rogue and murders people for the unforgivable crime of being a total bastard, the basic idea proves entertaining enough. Much has been made of Farrell's performance as frightened man in small space but the real star of the show is the unnamed caller. Equal parts mocking and menace, this calculating vigilante always follows through on all his threats. The fact that he knows everything about the protagonist and is able to get into his head so quickly makes him all the more terrifying and unpredictable.
Although in the end he is forced to flee from his shooting gallery, the caller is still able to walk unnoticed past the entire New York City police department to goad Stu as he lies drugged in an ambulance and the epilogue even shows him setting up his next scenario.
By the time the credits roll, Phone Booth's villain has made the protagonist a better man and potentially saved his marriage through the magic of fear. If it works, it works I guess.