The Caller (2009)

best movie i've ever seen.

Absolutely Fantastic

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

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.

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 wish I had it so I could have shot myself and saved myself from watching this pretentious piece of refuse. This movie is dull, uneventful, and slower than a snail. The first 45 minutes seemed like they took 3 hours to watch. It goes nowhere, is poorly written, and is filled with trivial scenes which simply waste your time and are not germane to the plot.Do yourself a favor and do not waste your money nor time on this wreck of a film. After reading other peoples reviews all I can figure from those who rated this nonsense highly are so high on their own farts they can't see straight.

This film is very different from the one characterized in the posted review. So different that I wonder if the reviewer watched the film or was told about it. The protagonist,Jimmy, beautifully acted by Frank Langella, was not seeking suicide. A contract murderer was hired by his company to stop him from doing further damage to the them. He was convicted in conscience by guilt over what his company was doing, which was gaining control of Third World nations and sanctioning ruthless acts against the people. Jimmy's friend Lulu helped him survive as a Jew in WW2 France. In a carefully written and photographed sequence, Lulu bears witness to the death of a civilian murdered by Nazis, thereby giving meaning and history to that death. Jimmy discovers through a newspaper article that Lulu has grown up to be a witness, a detective who sees and carries the stories of what he has seen. Jimmy hires Turlotte/Lulu (played by Elliot Gould with amazing subtlety) to bear witness to his life and death, thereby making Jimmy's act sacrificial. Jimmy was murdered by contract killers hired by an executive from the corporation. The blood money was paid by the executive buying the paintings of the contractor, an artist. (I always wondered who paid, and why they invested, enormous sums to mediocre artists for their drivel) There are more errors both factual and intellectual in the posted review, but if you have read this far I urge you to see "The Caller" as it is time well spent.