百年50部英文烧脑电影赏析:[31]Phone Booth 狙击电话亭

Stu Shepard（Colin Farrell）is an arrogant and cocky married New York City publicist who has been seeing a woman named Pam（Katie Holmes）behind his wife Kelly's（Radha Mitchell）back. He uses the last remaining public phone booth in the city to contact Pam. During the call, he is interrupted by a pizza delivery man, who attempts to deliver a free pizza to him, but Stu turns him away. As soon as Stu completes his call to Pam, the phone rings. Stu answers, to find that the caller, who knows his name, warns him not to leave the booth, and says he will say hello to Pam for him. He also says he will call Kelly, leaving Stu panicked.
The caller tells Stu that he has tested two previous individuals who have done wrong deeds in a similar manner（one was a pedophile, the other was a company insider who cashed out his stock options before the share price collapsed）, giving each a chance to reveal the truth to those they wronged, but in both cases, neither agreed and were killed. To demonstrate the threat, the caller fires a silenced sniper rifle at a toy sold by a nearby vendor; the damage is unseen by anyone but Stu and the caller himself. The caller demands that Stu confess his infidelity to both Kelly and Pam to avoid being killed. The caller contacts Pam, and puts her on line with Stu, who reveals that he is married. The caller then hangs up, telling Stu to call Kelly himself. As Stu hesitates, the booth is approached by three prostitutes demanding to use the phone. Stu refuses to leave, having been warned by the caller not to make a public disturbance. Leon（John Enos III）, the prostitutes' pimp, joins his charges, and starts to smash the side of the booth. The caller offers Stu to kill Leon for him, and Stu agrees. Leon is shot and killed, causing a panic in the streets. Soon, police and newscrews arrive to cover the story.
Police Captain Ed Ramey（Forest Whitaker）, already suspecting Stu of being the killer, corners the streets with police roadblocks and starts trying to negotiate with him to leave the booth, but Stu rejects, telling the caller that there is no way they can incriminate him; the caller proves him wrong, pointing to a handgun that was planted in the roof of the phone booth. Both Kelly and Pam soon arrive on the scene. The caller demands Stu tell Kelly the truth, which he does. The caller then orders Stu to choose between Kelly and Pam, and the woman he does not choose will be killed.
While on the phone with the caller, Stu secretly uses his cell phone to call Kelly, allowing her to overhear his conversation with the caller. She, in turn, quietly informs Captain Ramey of this. Meanwhile, Stu continues to confess to everyone that his whole life is a lie, to make himself look more important than he really is. Stu's confession provides sufficient distraction to allow the police to trace the payphone call to a nearby building, and Ramey uses coded messages to inform Stu of this. Stu warns the caller that the police are on the way, and the caller replies that if he is caught, then he will kill Kelly. Panicked, Stu grabs the handgun and leaves the booth, screaming for the sniper to kill him instead of Kelly or Pam. The police fire upon Stu, while a smaller force breaks into the room that the caller was tracked to, only to find the gun and a man's corpse.
Stu regains consciousness to find the police only fired rubber bullets at him, stunning but not harming him. Stu and Kelly happily reunite. As the police bring down the body, Stu identifies it as the pizza delivery man from earlier. Stu gets medical treatment at a local ambulance; as he does, a man with a briefcase（Kiefer Sutherland）passes by and says that he regrets killing the pizza deliverer and warns Stu that if his newfound honesty does not last he will be hearing from him again. The man disappears into the crowd before Stu realizes he was the caller on the other end of the phone.
斯图·谢帕德（柯林·法瑞尔饰）是一个傲慢自大的已婚的纽约经纪人，他一直在背着他的妻子凯莉（拉达·米歇尔饰）见另一个叫做帕姆（凯蒂·霍姆斯饰）的女人。他用这个城市仅存的最后一个公用电话亭来联系帕姆。在打电话过程中，他被一个送披萨的人打断了，这个人试图送给他一份免费的披萨，但是斯图把他打发走了。在他刚结束和帕姆的通话后，电话又响起来了。斯图接听了电话，结果发现打电话的人知道他的名字，那个人警告他不要离开电话亭，并且说他会代替他向帕姆问好。同时他还说他会打电话给凯莉，斯图很恐慌。

打电话的那个人告诉斯图，他用同样的方式考验了前两个做了错事的人（其中一个是恋童癖，另一个是一个在股价暴跌之前将自己的股权套现的公司内部人员），他给他们每个人一个机会去向被他们伤害过的人揭露真相，但是他们两个人都不同意，结果他们都被杀了。为了证明他的威胁，打电话的人用消音狙击步枪向附近的一个自动售货机中的一个玩具开枪了。除了斯图和打电话的那个人自己，没有任何人看到。打电话的人要求斯图向凯莉和帕姆坦白自己的不忠以避免被杀。打电话的人联系了帕姆并且让她和斯图连线，斯图告诉她，他已经结婚了。打电话的人挂断和帕姆的通话，然后要求斯图自己告诉凯莉。

当斯图正在犹豫的时候，电话亭周围来了几个妓女要求使用电话。由于打电话的人警告他不得产生公共干扰，斯图拒绝离开。妓女的皮条客里昂（约翰·伊诺斯三世饰）也加入进来和他交涉，并且开始猛击电话亭的侧面。打电话的人提出为了斯图杀掉里昂，斯图同意了。里昂被开枪杀死了，在街道上引起一阵恐慌，警察和记者赶到现场来调查这件事。
警官爱德·雷米上尉（福里斯特·惠特克饰）怀疑斯图是凶手，他设置路障以封锁道路，并且开始尝试与斯图交涉使他离开电话亭，但是斯图拒绝了，并且告诉打电话的人他们没有办法控告他。打电话的人证实他是错的，指出在电话亭顶棚已安放好一把手枪。很快凯莉和帕姆都来到现场。打电话的人要求斯图告诉凯莉真相，也就是他到底做了什么。然后，打电话的人要求斯图在凯莉和帕姆之间做出选择，他没有选的那个女人会被杀掉。
在和打电话的人通话时，斯图偷偷用自己的手机给凯莉打电话，让她偷听自己和打电话人的对话。然后，她再悄悄地告诉雷米队长。同时，斯图继续向每个人坦白他自己的整个人生都是一个谎言，他让自己看起来比实际上更重要。斯图的忏悔充分转移了打电话人的注意力，使得警察追踪到打电话的人就在附近的一座建筑上，雷米用编码消息将这些告知斯图。斯图警告打电话的人，警察很快就要到了，对方回复说如果他被抓了，他会杀死凯莉。惊慌之下，斯图抓起手枪离开了电话亭，向狙击者强烈要求杀死自己而不是凯莉或帕姆。警察对斯图开枪，同时，一小部分兵力闯人被追踪到的打电话者的房间，结果只发现了枪和一个男人的尸体。
斯图恢复知觉之后发现，警察向他开枪用的子弹只是橡胶子弹，可以使他昏倒但是不会伤害他。斯图和凯莉幸福地重聚。当警察将尸体带下来的时候，斯图认出是先前送披萨的人。斯图在当地的救护车里面接受治疗，正当这时候，有一个带着公文包的人（基弗·萨瑟兰饰）路过，并且告诉他，他后悔杀死了送披萨的人，并且警告斯图如果他刚刚找回的诚实不持久的话，他会再听到自己的声音。在斯图意识到这就是电话那端打电话的人之前，这个神秘的人就消失在人群中了。

arrogant［'ærəgənt］adj. 自大的，傲慢的
sniper［'snaipə］n. 狙击兵
vendor［'vendɔ:］n. 卖主；小贩；自动售货机
disturbance［di'stə:bəns］n. 干扰；骚乱；忧虑
negotiate［ni'gəuʃieit］vi. 谈判，交涉
incriminate［in'krimineit］vt. 控告；暗示……有罪
payphone［'peifəun］n. 付费电话
briefcase［'bri:fkeis］n. 公文包
deliverer［di'livərə］n. 拯救者；交付者；投递者
重点掌握
■ The man disappears into the crowd...
我们都知道，disappear作为动词解时，有“消失；失踪；不复存在”的意思，所以文中disappear into是“消失在……之中”的意思，disappear into the crowd是“消失在人群中”的意思。比如：He desperately saw her disappear into the crowd. 他绝望地看着她消失在人群中。

Joel Schumacher Interviewed by Anwar Brett
Is it harder for you to do an intense, low budget movie like this rather than a major studio production?
It is, but then again when you're doing a big franchise, like a Grisham bestseller or a Batman movie, you know that the expectations are going to be very high. So that's a different kind of pressure.
Colin Farrell's character in the film is an amoral showbiz publicist - is this your revenge on them in any way?
I don't have a publicist, so I definitely had a lot of fun with it. But the writer, Larry Cohen, has a sister who is a publicist and his first wife was a publicist, so I think we know whose revenge this is. I'm happy to say I have none in my family.
The tension on screen in Phone Booth must have been reflected off screen in trying to make a feature film in just under 12 days, wasn't it?
The great thing was that we got all our work done on the first day. There's a team thing that happens on a movie when morale can start going down for one reason or another, there's an energy-suck because everybody wonders why the hell they're running around. But we sort of became the little engine that could. We were backed up to Christmas and no one wanted to work then, so there was a feeling of “Let's get this done”. I think that started to form its own energy. 与一个主要工作室的产品相比，拍摄这样一部紧张而且预算低的电影对你来说是不是更难？
是的，但从另一角度来说，当你在做像格里森姆畅销书或蝙蝠侠系列电影这样的大师级作品的时候，你知道期望值会很高。所以，那是一种不同类型的压力。
柯林·法瑞尔在影片中的角色是一个不辨是非的娱乐经纪人，这是你在某种方式下对他们的报复吗？
我没有经纪人，所以我在其中确实发现了很多乐趣。但是作者拉里·柯恩有一个姐姐是经纪人，而且他的第一任妻子也是经纪人，所以我想我们知道这是谁的复仇了。我很高兴地说，我的家族里面没有一个（经纪人）。
《狙击电话亭》银幕上的紧张一定被反射到现实中，你们努力在12天之内完成一部电影，不是吗？
极好的事情是，第一天我们就把所有的工作做完了。这是一个团队工作，在拍一部电影时，由于这样那样的原因都会导致士气低下，这一过程也非常耗费精力，因为每个人都在想为什么他们要东跑西跑。但是我们某种程度上变成了一个能动的小发动机。如果我们拖到圣诞节，那时候每个人都不想工作，所以就有一种感觉：“让我们赶快把它做完吧！”我想就是这样开始形成了团队的能量。

影片最初的映期被定在2002年11月15日，但当华盛顿和马里兰发生了狙击惨案之后，20世纪福克斯决定推迟上映。
凯蒂·霍姆斯在餐馆中的镜头是在她休息时拍摄的。
片中的电话确实处于连线状态，有人在电话中同柯林·法瑞尔通话，基弗·萨瑟兰的声音是在后期制作中加上去的。
扮演狙击杀手的基弗·萨瑟兰在片中只出现了3分钟。