A tender evocation of youth that turns ponderous as it crawls towards a company's revenge on one of its executives.
The Caller (2009)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:17
Fresh:4
Rotten:13
Average Rating:4.5/10
Runtime: 1 hr 32 mins
Genre: Horror/Suspense
Synopsis:
Director Richard Ledes’ latest film, The Caller, finds Jimmy Stevens (Frank Langella), a senior VP at an international energy firm, blowing the whistle on his company's deadly and corrupt practices...
Director Richard Ledes’ latest film, The Caller, finds Jimmy Stevens (Frank Langella), a senior VP at an international energy firm, blowing the whistle on his company's deadly and corrupt practices in Latin America. Knowing he will be assassinated for his betrayal, he places an anonymous call securing the services of private detective Frank Turlotte (Elliott Gould) to trail him from a distance.
Unaware that the man who has hired him and the man he is following are one and the same, Turlotte begins a thrilling game of cat and mouse with Jimmy - New York City becoming the arena for this uncertain contest. Slowly, the investigation begins to yield clues, revealing the larger story of Jimmy's mysterious life and enigmatic past.
When evidence of his childhood in WWII France is unearthed, a haunting memory surrounding a lone, wounded man and the two young boys who would witness his dying breath becomes the key to the present. As the clock winds down and the hired guns close in on Jimmy, Turlotte puts the puzzle pieces together with just enough time to fulfill his duty, fated long before he first heard the voice of the caller. --Virgil Films & Entertainment
Starring: Frank Langella, Elliott Gould, Laura Harring
Starring: Frank Langella, Elliott Gould, Laura Harring
Director: Richard Ledes
Director: Richard Ledes
Screenwriter: Alain-Didier Weill
Studio: Virgil Films & Entertainment
Reviews for The Caller
Frank Langella's note-perfect, tour-de-force turn as a man elegantly shaping his own demise is nicely counterpointed by a shambling Elliott Gould as a bird-watching private eye.
We're left to wonder why we're watching Gould scramble for clues to a mystery we've been given the solution to.
Very few actors have the ability to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear and almost have you completely forget you're interacting with pork product. Frank Langella is one of these.
Sadly, The Caller, the second feature from director Richard Ledes, doesn't allow its leading men the luxury of their legacies, instead forcing a wan quasi-thriller in the space where a laidback character study should be.
Director Richard Leder was lucky enough to land actors of the caliber of Oscar-nominees Elliot Gould and Frank Langella only to squander their collective talents in service of a tedious yawner.
There’s a vaguely appealing elegance to the way the film moves -- that is, when the actors stop spouting laughably portentous dialogue long enough for one to appreciate the film’s pacing.
IF Frank Langella hadn't received an Oscar nomination for "Frost/Nixon," it's pretty doubtful that an opaque oddity like Richard Ledes' The Caller would have managed even a one-week vanity booking at the Quad.
Painfully obvious where this film is going after just ten minutes. Poorly written, poorly conceived.
Multinational corporate terrorism as narrative second fiddle to mock sleuthing around via poetry and existential sweet nothings dropped into a voice concealment cell phone device. The Caller: Dial-up assisted suicide by gumshoe.
The Caller is a loopy, talky, 92-minute two-hander with Elliott Gould and Frank Langella (on a downward spiral following his juicy triumph in Frost/Nixon), written and directed by a force to forget called Richard Ledes.
Close but no cigar as a great international corporate mystery thriller slows to a crawl in a drawn out study of death. Frank Langella and Elliott Gould should have been used better.
Frank Langella and Elliot Gould lend gravitas to this enigmatic cat-and-mouse game which unfolds far too slowly with not enough of a dramatic payoff.
Latest News for The Caller
May 03, 2009:
Multinational corporate terrorism as narrative second fiddle to mock sleuthing around via poetry and existential sweet nothings dropped into a voice concealment cell phone device. The Caller: Dial-up assisted suicide by gumshoe. ![]()
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February 16, 2009:
Multinational corporate terrorism as narrative second fiddle to mock sleuthing around via poetry and existential sweet nothings dropped into a voice concealment cell phone device. The Caller: Dial-up assisted suicide by gumshoe. ![]()
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February 12, 2009:
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