Director: Brad Anderson
Stars: Halle Berry, Abigail Breslin, Morris Chestnut, Michael Eklund
Jordan (Berry) is a 911 call operator who experiences a traumatic event when a young girl she’s speaking to is kidnapped and killed. A few months later she’s forced to take another call with another young girl, Casey, (Breslin) who has been kidnapped, and soon comes to realize that it’s the same person who kidnapped the other girl. Jordan has to deal with the past while remaining calm to help save Casey.
I like the premise of this. Being a 911 operator must be a gruelling job and it’s interesting to have the film set from this perspective. Berry is good in the role, showing how tortured Jordan is from her previous experience but also displaying the fortitude to do her job when she needs to. The film is a tense affair with a lot of suspense but towards the end it shifts to a far more creepy and horrific tone. It’s a bit jarring at first, but it works for the most part although the end left me cold and it’s an example of an ending that pretty much undoes all the good work the film does preceding it.
I loved the tension and the mystery. I liked the chase aspect and the two women working together to try and get out of this horrible situation even though they were only connected by a phone. What I didn’t like was the out of character actions at the end. It didn’t ring true with the way they had been portrayed throughout the film and it fit in more with a typical slasher flick rather than this suspenseful thriller. I liked how it took a creepy turn, but the ending really turned me off. It felt like it was there to be shocking and a bit of a twist, but it didn’t serve the story or the characters at all.
Aside from the ending it’s still a good film and I’d recommend watching it if you want to be sucked in to a good thriller.