“The Call” for Better Hollywood Scripts

TheCall

Going to the movies is a major investment.  You’re out cash, time and usually patience if the person behind you is kicking your chair so much that you can’t read the Facebook posts of the guy in front of you.  So when Hollywood actually lures us from our giant HD screens rather than having us wait a month to see it on the shelves at Target in 30 days, it had better be worth it.

I’d already heard the reviews that The Call was disappointing, but sometimes it’s fun to escape and I had already surrendered enough credibility with shows like 24.  Maybe Jack Bauer only had eight really tough days in an otherwise boring career as a government stooge.  How many atomic bombs, terrorists, and chemical and biological weapons can one person stand?  Jack never even went to the bathroom. (And wherever he was, LA, DC, New York, he was always 20 minutes away.  Given traffic in those towns, that time-frame alone made the stories far-fetched.)

Berry

It was a pretty good techie thriller for a good portion of the film as the 9-1-1 operator pieces together the details of a 6-month cold-case killer coming back to haunt her with a mall kidnapping.  Lots of suspense, computer Big-Brotherish spying and a decent soundtrack.  Then in six easy steps the silliness came to a mushroom cloud bigger than any disaster Jack Bauer ever had to withstand.

[I’d say spoiler alert–but it’s already spoiled.]

1.  The heroine decides to head for the remote location on her own in the dark–without telling anyone.

2.  She finds a Lovely Bones hole in the ground and doesn’t call for back-up.

3.  She drops the phone in the scary hole and decides to go get it.

4.  She waves her flashlight around in the dark Silence of the Lambs basement, perhaps alerting an observant psychopath of her presence.

Breslin

5.  She knocks out the bad guy and doesn’t tie him up as the audience is screaming for her to look out for the waking up bad guy.

6.  After a successful escape, the heroine and rescued girl decide to cold-bloodedly murder the cold-blooded killer by locking him in his lair, choosing not to give any closure to the families of his other victims.

Sneers and laughter during the credits was probably not the end-result of the film’s producers and director–certainly not Richard O’Vidio who probably had his original ending trashed long ago.  (Whenever you see two or more “Story” credits, you know there’s been some major tampering.)  And Oscar-winner Hallie Berry probably didn’t intend for her Storm in X-Men to be the less-fictional of the two roles.

The “Oh-Come-On” Meter is nearly worn out by the time this rollicking comedy of a bloody thriller completes a perfect night out.

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About Kevin Walsh

Kevin began MyMediaDiary.com in 2013 as an experiment that was as simple as "What's a blog?" and ended up becoming a forum for fellow writers. He's been a high school teacher for 28 years and worked as an administrator and instructor in colleges for 10 years since then. Contact him at: kevin@mymediadiary.com He is also the producer of the web-series and blog, www.DiggingDetroit, founder and producer for MMD Productions at www.mmdphotovideo.com which offers quick, professional photography, video and multimedia solutions for individuals, organizations and businesses. His high school media production text, "Video Direct," has been used in 40 states--and he occasionally still sells a few. He is the current president of the non-profit DAFT (Digital Arts Film and Television) which sponsors the Michigan Student Film Festival. He lives in Royal Oak, Michigan, is married to Patrice and is tolerated by his two kids Aidan and Abby who have all graciously allowed him to write about them on occasion.

One Response to “The Call” for Better Hollywood Scripts

  1. S. Livingway says:

    I was smart enough not to see this clunker.