The Call (2013)

[Denisha Cerniglia]

The Call is a 2013 American psychological crime thriller film directed by Brad Anderson and written by Richard D'Ovidio. The film stars Abigail Breslin as Casey Welson, a teenage girl kidnapped by a mysterious serial killer and Halle Berry as Jordan Turner, a 9-1-1 operator, still suffering emotionally from a prior failed botched 9-1-1 call, who receives Casey's call. Morris Chestnut, Michael Eklund, Michael Imperioli, and David Otunga also star. The story was originally envisioned as a television series, but D'Ovidio later rewrote it as a film. Filming began in July 2012 and spanned a period of 25 days, with all scenes being shot in California, mainly Burbank and Santa Clarita.

A screening of The Call was held at the Women's International Film Festival hosted at the Regal South Beach theater on February 26, 2013. TriStar Pictures released it to theatres on March 15, 2013. Considered to be high-concept by many reviewers, the film proved a commercial success, grossing over $68 million against budget of $13 million. Halle Berry was nominated for Choice Movie Actress in a Drama at the Teen Choice Awards and Best Actress at the BET Awards while Michael Eklund won Best Supporting Performance by a Male in a Motion Picture at the Leo Awards. Critics gave the film mixed reviews, but praised Berry and Breslin's performances and the film's suspense. It is currently the most successful WWE produced film.

Seasoned 9-1-1 operator Jordan Turner receives a call from 15-year-old Leah Templeton, fearing for her life as a man breaks into her home while her parents were away. Jordan calmly advises her to hide, which she did under the bed. After the intruder had searched the room thinking Leah had left, he proceeds to leave the house. The girl believes he has left, but when her call is disconnected, Jordan calls back, and the ring gives Leah's location away to the intruder. After the male intruder had Leah, Jordan attempts to dissuade him, but he responds, "It's already done," and hangs up. The next day, a television report confirms that Leah has been murdered. Emotionally affected, Jordan decides she can no longer handle field calls.

Six months later, Jordan is training 9-1-1 operators. Teenager Casey Welson, after heading home from the mall, is almost hit by a car in the parking garage. The driver apologizes but then throws her into the trunk of his car. Kidnapped, Casey uses a disposable phone to call 9-1-1. Brooke, a rookie operator, receives the call but can't handle it, so Jordan takes over. However, since Casey is using a burner phone, her exact location cannot be determined by GPS.

On the road again, Alan awakens in his trunk and begins panicking. Hearing his screams, the kidnapper pulls over and finishes him off once and for all. When he later stops for gas, Casey tries to crawl out of the trunk and yells for help. When a gas attendant sees her and tries to open the car door, the kidnapper douses him with gasoline and burns him alive. Meanwhile, the police finds the kidnapper's abandoned car, a red Toyota Camry LE in a parking lot off a nearby highway and, using fingerprints left at the scene, discover the kidnapper's identity is Michael Foster.

Jordan hides from Michael in the cellar. Looking around, it becomes clear Michael had incestuous feelings towards his sister and was distraught when she fell ill and died. Michael keeps a prop head which he treats like his sister. He has been scalping and killing people similar to her since then, trying to find scalps that match his sister's hair, which she lost from chemotherapy.

Jordan soon finds Casey strapped to the wheelchair and attacks Michael as he begins to scalp her forehead. She frees her and they try to escape, during which Casey stabs Michael in the back with scissors. Removing the scissors to hurt Casey, Jordan and Casey kick him back down into the cellar and he fully falls back, unconscious. Instead of calling 9-1-1, they tape him to the same chair he used to torture Casey in. When Michael regains consciousness, the women reveal that they intend to leave him there to die. Casey will claim she escaped and Jordan found her in the woods, while everyone will assume that Michael has disappeared. He first insults them, then pleads that they cannot do this to him. Jordan replies with his own words, "It's already done," and locks the door.

"I thought, 'That's a world we've never seen before in a film.' You never get to see the other side of it. [They were playing some actual calls on the news segment, and] listening to the calls, I got a chill up my spine as I envisioned what was going on [on the other end of the phone], and I thought that it would be a great world to play into."

Screenwriter Richard D'Ovidio was inspired to script the story after his wife heard an NPR segment with a 9-1-1 operator discussing her job. He began to research the subject and visited the Los Angeles Metropolitan Communications Dispatch Center (MCDC). Finding the center, which has backup generators, bulletproof windows, and a moat surrounding the building, to be "pretty amazing," he decided to shed light on what he viewed as a previously overlooked occupation. The story was originally conceptualized as a television series titled The Hive (a reference to the constant calls and conversations sounding like bees buzzing), but D'Ovidio decided to redraft it as a film on realizing that "the operators couldn't be the ones kicking in doors and going out into the field" all the time. As a result, what was planned to be the pilot episode was expanded and revised as a movie.[3][4]

Chestnut, who plays Phillips, a police officer and Turner's boyfriend, prepared by riding along with Los Angeles police officers to observe what it is like to be an officer in a squad car[5] and Berry prepared for the role by visiting a call center and observing the operators at work.[3] She told a Miami Herald interviewer, "You get a different perspective by doing research... You can't know what its like to be a cop even though you've seen it in the movies. But nobody ever saw a 9-1-1 center. I thought they lived in the ground somewhere! It was interesting to see who they were and how they deal and how stressful it can be. I was a wreck watching them. They would just be as cool as can be doing their thing. I thought, 'I could never do this job.'"[6]

Producers scheduled for The Call to be filmed in Canada in June 2011 after they failed to make the cut for a California tax credit. With a low budget of $13 million, they settled on Ottawa, Ontario, where director Anderson had just finished another project. However, the California Film Commission (CFC) called back nine months later and informed them that the waiting list had been largely cleared and that they now qualified for $1.9 million in tax deduction. According to Producer Michael Helfant, they were "literally days from starting to put down a deposit." Berry was reportedly pleased with the news, wanting to stay in Los Angeles and the CFC helped secure film locations for the project.[7]

With a crew of roughly 120 persons, filming took a total of 25 days, spanning from July to August 2012. Car chase scenes were shot at Long Beach and a Westlake Village office building was modeled as the emergency dispatch center. The latter was also used for the scenes in which Welson is locked in the trunk of a car. Other filming locations include the Burbank Town Center on Magnolia Boulevard in Burbank, California, Santa Clarita, California and the 170 Highway.[7] At one point, Berry was rushed to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center after falling headfirst on concrete while shooting a fight sequence. A spokesperson for Berry confirmed that she suffered a minor head injury and was taken to the hospital as a precaution, but she checked out healthy and was released.[citation needed]

Berry told interviewer Kimberly Grant, "The hard part for me was to try to stay connected to Phillips and Welson." This was because, Grant writes, "she had to spend an entire day reading 21 pages of dialogue, rattling off in quick succession 911-operator jargon, that would be cut and edited to fit the film... In film terms, that means Berry performed for 21 minutes straight with no breaks, not an easy feat for any actor." Though she enjoyed working with Chestnut,[8] Berry told Grant that it was difficult being unable to see her co-stars for most of the film: "That was my constant challenge; to stay on such an emotional level [as Jordan], so that I would be on the same level as they [i.e., Casey and Officer Phillips] were. I used that feeling of frustration and of being stuck to fuel my character."[5]

The score of the film is composed by John Debney. Unlike the other films he composed with an orchestra, the film's score is completely filled with dark and intense electronic and synthesized elements although he used little orchestral elements in the score.

Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions paid very little money to acquire U.S. distribution rights.[10][11] But the film screened for a test audience in November 2012 and scores were even higher than anticipated, prompting Sony to give the film a wide theatrical release.[12]

Spanning 94 minutes upon completion, the movie received an R rating for violence, disturbing content and some language.[13] Berry and Chestnut promoted the film at the ShowPlace ICON movie theater[14] at the red-carpet premiere in Chicago on February 28.[8] Berry also traveled to Rio to promote The Call in anticipation of its April 12 release in Brazil.[15]

The Women's International Film Festival hosted a screening of The Call at the Regal South Beach theater on February 26, 2013.[16] Chestnut told the audience that he would sign on for a sequel, saying about Berry, "I didn't get to kiss this woman enough!" Berry added, "I'm in the movie and even I was scared."[17] The film was released in theatres on March 15 and on DVD and Blu-ray on June 25 of that same year.[18] DVD extras included a featurette entitled "Emergency Procedure: Making the Film" and commentary from Abigail Breslin, Halle Berry, and other filmmakers. The Blu-ray version came with more features, including deleted scenes, an alternate ending, Michael Eklund's audition tape, featurettes entitled "A Set Tour of The Hive and The Lair" and "Inside the Stunts", as well as all of the original DVD content.[19]

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