Movie Review: "The Call"

The Call is not a bad movie, there's just nothing original about it, however it does deliver all of the thrills you'd expect of a thriller such as this.

Halle Berry plays a 911 operator who gets a 911 call from a kidnapped girl, portrayed by Abigail Breslin, being held in the trunk of a car.  What follows is a tense, at times preposterous thrill ride.

Where The Call works is in creating suspense.  While I typically feel it's a touch overkill to accentuate the intensity with bombastic strings and drums, the believable performances from Berry and Breslin make it work.  To be honest, there's nothing wrong with this movie, it's just safe and predictable.  The only area where it tries something different is in the weird ending.

The film manages to defy convention for the last two minutes, and it didn't really come across as believable for the characters that had already been established.  Perhaps it would have been better had the filmmakers just gone full on with the genre conventions and given the film the predictable ending.

I give The Call a C!