Customer Reviews

The Caller

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

A few noted reviewers here use the SASS abbreviation - and this would apply here in the forefront of all synopses for those that suffer from it. For me though, I watched this film from beginning to end without ever wanting to fast-forward, without ever wanting to see all that was being left out. Truly one of the only films this year that deserves the independent support but with a mainstream cast.

This will probably be one of the only bare bones DVDs that gets a 5 star from me, but the performances, quality and nuanced displays of professionalism make this a stand-alone art piece. The Amazon description actually gives away too much, so any more description would be moot for getting the full effect of what this has to offer. But maybe a small indulgence...

Two story lines intertwine about the character's lives in 1940s France and modern day New York City. One of a retired NYC detective playing the private eye, and another of a corporate cover-up man that grows a conscience and decides to end his life in the way he deems fit to make things right.

The music, camera angles, inter-spliced monotony of lifestyles, and mystery of storytelling all make for a minimalist piece that only a few will enjoy. I have read a plethora of complaints about being bored, nothing happening, and "I don't get it" whiners filling the ranks, so if you find yourself saying this when watching a good film, then skip this one.

I found no fault with the sound, picture or soundtrack - just a quality piece about memories, life and the events that can lead up to one's reckoning for the things done wrong in life. I related to the loss of one's self in this, and the film offers much to think about in making the choices we do as we get older. Hope you enjoy a great film.

This is the kind of film that you convince yourself you are just going to have on in the background while you do something else, until you slowly come the realization that you have absorbed every detail, heard every word, lived every moment, shared every note of the score ... with them. What began as cold and detached, has become warm, righteous and has taught you a lesson about how you want to live and the importance of the people in your life. Simple, bittersweet, truth.

The Caller has a European feel to it in that it explores the little things in detail while leaving some big things unsaid. Its not a complicated story, nor is it the non-stop action film portrayed in the trailer but its distinctive and entertaining. Frank Langella is on the money. Four stars because Elliot Gould says his lines in such a way that you expect his eyeballs to move from side to side.

Reviews I've read seem to be either very positive or very negative. People looking for action/thriller/suspense were definitely disappointed. The plot is pretty clearly spelled out at the beginning, so there's little suspense, and the big surprises that affect the two main characters are no surprise to the audience. Action? Precious little. So if there's no action and no suspense, what's left? CHARACTER. The two men in this story are compelling, and are well written, directed, and acted.

I watched it because I'm a Frank Langella fan, and find any of his films to be worth the time spent. I haven't seen Elliot Gould for years (decades) and was pleasantly surprised that he carried his important role so well.

If you dislike subtitles, be warned: Some flashbacks to 1940s France are spoken in French and subtitled, plus a few lines here and there in the present-day portion of the movie. Not enough to annoy me, even though I was knitting a sock while watching the film!

The Amazon.com description of the movie really gives away too much, and one reviewer mentioned that if you look at the pictures on the back of the DVD in sequence, they give away the whole plot. But the plot is merely a vehicle for telling a compelling story of two men's memories. Beautifully filmed and one I would hope to watch again someday.

I'm sorry but I found this movie wanting. Wanting for a sense of direction for one thing.

Langella hires a private detective to follow him around, but won't tell the detective why. And disguises his voice so he doesn't know who hired him. If Jimmy can afford to hire a detective why not hire private security to protect him instead? If he has a death wish at least he could take down his assasins and also his former employer with his murder. Instead he hires a man to take pictures of him and follow him with no apparent purpose.

The story also has Jimmy visiting his senile mother in a care facility. She talks in riddles also.

And then there is a young woman with a daughter that Langella sees. Yet there is no physical relationship between them. Much less a romantic one.

The story is too muddled and falls apart. It's a riddle wrapped inside an inigma.

I enjoy a good mystery. Like 3 Days of the Condor with Robert Redford. Something with a little mystery and suspense. This movie had nothing to keep one's attention.

"To thy audience be true" should be Frank Langella's motto. Then he wouldn't make movies like this! He's boring, the movie's predictable and has a central character named on the DVD cover's back. Heck, it has the storyline if you look at the pictures clockwise. I'll save the suspense and use the pence (penny.) If you REALLY have to have THE CALLER then buy the USED for ONE PENNY plus tax and tags. That brings the tab up to around THREE DOLLARS.

I wished to see what Langella was like in a 21st century film. He's still handsome, has "those lips, those eyes" and will forever (at least in photos.) If this one is any indication of what the others are then NO Langella ever again for me! He's best known for DRACULA from his stage play of the same name. His class films began in DIARY OF A MAD HOUSEWIFE, THE 12 CHAIRS,Twelve Chairs, THOSE LIP-THOSE EYES, SPINX, anything in the 1980-90's. Perhaps he should remain on the stage. He recently portrayed "Thomas More" in A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS. Langella was acclaimed for his stage work and just now was an Academy award "Best Actor" nominee. He made films for money, had fun on stage and won numerous awards there. Was he A MAN ONLY FOR THE 20TH CENTURY?

If you're looking for a great film to buy, look for Timothy Dalton on Amazon and buy his. They are ALL great and his Bond brought out the tears and grit first. He admires Daniel Craig for taking up where he left off. "Nobody does it better...than Timothy Dalton then Daniel Craig."

I had to chuckle at the simplistic bar graphs they used in the beginning to predict the growth of energy in the third world. The whole idea that some one would put a hit on Jimmy was unbelievable as well as the fact that knowing one was on him, he opted to make it easy on them. The movie, in spite of the stupid bar graphs starts out interesting enough and then suddenly dies into over an hour of yawns. I was never able to feel for the main character, perhaps because he was content to die, or maybe it was the fact it was played by Frank Langella. Not that Frank is a bad actor, it is just that I can't recall a movie where he played a good guy. To add to the boredom, Elliot Gould's hobby was bird watching. Now if they wanted to make the movie interesting, Gould's hobby could have been gambling and he was into the mob for money, who happen to be the same guys doing the hit. But that would change this boring drama into an action flick people might enjoy. Watching this movie, I had the same feeling when I watched "Chariots of Fire." It was a movie you were supposed to like, but in reality you hated it, then pretended you liked it. Doesn't the emperor have nice clothes?

So close. There are stunning visual glimpses of the upper west side, France at war, a mythic-reality tango accordionist, ... . These cinematic gems are worth the price of admission. Yet at moments the writing jars. Pity. Making movies is difficult.

Short Attention Span Summary:

1. A man is shown dealing in some business deals that smack of illegality.
2. Later he falsifies some reports knowing that they will lead to his being executed.
3. The hit man that is to execute him gives him a call on the phone and he asks for a delay of two weeks (lest information be given that incriminates the company for which the businessman worked).
4. The businessman hires a detective to follow him-- but the detective does not know that it was actually the businessman who hired him.
5. We see snippets of the businessman's life and find out that he was survivor of WWII and he hired the detective so that he would not have to be alone when he died.
6. The businessman is eventually summarily executed (and does not die alone).

This really stretched the plausibility test. The acting was very good and very serious/ sober. But if someone wanted to die, and he wanted someone with him when he died, couldn't he have found some other way from among his many contacts so to do?

There was also the issue of his mother. Was she sane or wasn't she? Could there really be a human being that old on the planet (she would have to have been nearing 105 for the things in the movie to make sense)? And what was going on with her accent? At one time, she had a German accent. At another time, she had an American accent. And then still another time, she had a French accent.

This is worth a rental price-- but not a theater ticket.

Powerfully intense, artistically original, organically dramatic and lyrically tragic are some of the most conspicuous profiles of this singular film.

A troubled man who has been emotionally wounded by the crimes of the war, decides by himself to hire "a private eye" in order to investigate himself to carve in relief the unsaid levels of corruption around the company he works.

The use of "Nosferatu" as visual metaphor of the predation in progress or the projection during five seconds of "Paths of glory" when the destiny of the soldiers have been made are brilliant metaphors that accent the tragedy of this isolated man who loves a jazz singer becoming her a sophisticated lady (in honor to George Gershwin) seeks comfort around the simple friendship of a little child. Unable to make a crude statement he gives the main clues to all of those who surround him to try to show the rottenness through "a discrete make up process" about the real situation and the sending of a devastating video clip in South America, demolishing unquestionable.

A mature existential drama that overpasses by far the anecdote by itself. As it's usual Frank Langella gives us a towering performance as well as Elliot Gould in this intimate human portrait.

Don't miss it by any reason.