Review: Brad Anderson’s ‘The Call’ Makes Lazy Use of Decent Talent

A former Oscar winner tries to save the life of a former Oscar nominated darling from the clutches of a sadistic killer in the new thriller, The Call. With that kind of prestige, you might expect more than just a bargain-basement chiller with one interesting hook it rides for as long as possible, but you’d be wrong. The Call, directed by horror-veteran Brad Anderson and starring Halle Berry and Abigail Breslin, starts out a taut, no-wasted-motion thriller, working through every generic turn the genre has to offer with glee, but ends up a messy waste of everyone’s time. It’s not the kind of movie that warrants an Oscar…for anyone. The hook The Call is so keen on playing with is that it plays from the perspective of a 911 operator, Berry filling this particular part here. Jordan Turner, her character, is a skilled operator, taking and working through 911 calls with ease, dispatching the po-po whenever needed, and generally trying to …