The Caller (2009)

Nice effects though.

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

This is one of those films that just lays there and screams "LOOK AT ME! I'M SO DAMNED MEANINGFUL, AREN'T I?" Before it was halfway over, all I wanted to scream back was "NO! YOU DAMNED WELL AREN'T!"I'm not even sure where to start with this thing. The plot is largely built on a mystery that it all but gives away within the 1st 15 minutes. T he viewer is left to just sit there and stew, waiting for the film to finally get around to what you already know is coming. And when the plot isn't dawdling over non-mysterious mysteries, it relies on contrivances straight out of a 1970s political thriller. Nothing the main character does makes a lick of sense. Two essentially brand new characters are introduced at the midpoint of the movie to keep dragging the exhausted narrative along. The soundtrack practically assaults you with this mournful tinkling on the piano, which honestly serves as something of a respite from the stilted dialog. Oh, and Elliot Gould walks around with a mustache that looks like it's trying to eat the lower half of his face.The story begins in 1944 France as two young boys flee from the war into the woods, jumps forward to post 9/11 New York City and an old dude riding around in a town care and then flashes back to 1940 France where a tow-headed boy talks about fairies with his mother. After that inauspicious beginning, I should have known what I was in for.The old dude turns out to be Jimmy (Frank Langella), a financial analyst who is a cog in the global machine that traps developing countries into inescapable debt. Then, in a not terribly clear manner, Jimmy double crosses his associates and when he knows they're planning to kill him, asks for two more weeks to live. That's so Jimmy can disguise his voice and hire a private investigator named Frank (Elliot Gould) over the phone. Jimmy asks Frank to follow him around and report what he sees, with Frank not knowing he's spying on the guy who hired him. And yes, it turns out that Jimmy and Frank are the two young boys from 1944 France. The movie doesn't make that explicit until later on, but there's never any other explanation offered up.The whole Frank following Jimmy for Jimmy thing peters out after a while, and that's when we're fully introduced to Eileen (Laura Harring), Jimmy's sophisticated girlfriend and Lila (Anabel Sosa), a young girl that Jimmy has befriended in a very non "To Catch A Predator" way. Laura Harring is impressively sexy, except when she's doing some very karaoke-ish night club singing, but Eileen and Lila are really just there to give Jimmy an excuse to explain the whole Jimmy-Frank mystery that anyone in the audience with 1/4th of a brain had already mostly figured out on their own.The film ends with the bad guys trying to kill Jimmy and Frank driving a mid-sized pleasure boat, of all things, to the rescue. By this point, I was so disgusted with this whole thing that I desperately wanted the monster from Cloverfield to show up and eat everybody.Frank Langella and Gould are superb actors. Here, however, they're tasked with finding interesting ways to be dull. The effect is a little like watching someone comb and style their own pubic hair. Even when you recognize they're doing a good job, it's still not anything you want to look at.I suppose if The Caller hadn't spelled out early on the "secret" relationship between Jimmy and Frank, hadn't revealed to the viewer that Jimmy was the one who hired Frank and didn't clearly illustrate why Jimmy was doing what he was doing, this might possibly have been a slightly intriguing motion picture. What it ends up being is proof that if you start out with an utterly ridiculous and even more obvious story, you can try and film it in the slowest, most self-important way possible and the ridiculous obviousness will still overwhelm any attempt to class it up.

This is pretty feeble. Characters are introduced just to look nice. The little girl in the park, the attractive blues singer who I suppose the main protagonist is having an affair with – who are these people and why are they in the movie? There is no connecting the dots.There is a lot of wandering and meandering dialogue – particularly with his mother in the hospital. At the end of the movie as he lies dying, there is an aerial shot of the Statue of Liberty - why? There are a lot of other art shots for the sake of prettiness that annoy you as this film drags on. I was hoping for some kind of wrap-up but there was none.I like Frank Langella but the mood is very somber and this film has no real meaning to me.

I have watched the film life of Frank Langella beginning with 'The Twelve Chairs' back in the 70s'. His Charismatic ability and dynamic screen force is impressive. This movie calumniates with all the cinematic experience he has accrued over his career. The film is entitled " The Caller." If you are expecting a lot of action, thrills or explosive drama, this is not one of them. Instead, what one sees is the story of an aged Executive who has seen enough corporate destruction to fill his conscience and like most humanitarians, wants to atone for his part. Langella plays Jimmy Stevens an ex-CEO of a multi-Billion dollar corporation which continues to destroy 3rd world countries without remorse. Planting the seeds of failure within the corporation, Stevens knows he will be marked for death. Realizing he has become a target, Jimmy hires private investigator Frank Turlotte (Elliott Gould) to be a witness during his last days. The movie becomes a death watch for a man who has learned in his youth, that death, even when slow in arriving, is death none-the-less and there is nothing to do but wait and reminisce. Touching in its inception, the film is a remarkable heartfelt legacy of humanity realizing its own destruction. This film will no doubt become a milestone for Langella which will culminate in becoming a Classic. ****

I saw this at Cinequest in San Jose, in the gorgeous California Theater, but this movie would look good in the homeliest cineplex. This is the rarest of thrillers: one that makes its impact through careful character studies and a refusal to give up its secrets. Frank Langella gives a sterling performance as the corporate whistle-blower marked for death, subtle and surprising in its emotional power. Elliott Gould isn't quite as effective as a private detective/birder, but he is very watchable as he watches his subjects, both human and avian. "The Caller" actually looks more like a fine French drama, in its attention to detail and the deft use of its child actors. Definitely worth watching!