Originally scheduled for a November release in 2002, Fox put Phone Booth indefinitely on hold while a real life sniper crisis played out in Maryland and Virginia.

Slick New York publicist Stu Shepard (Farrell) is about to make his daily call to a wannabe actress he's trying to bed when the payphone rings.

He's told that if he hangs up or leaves the booth, he'll be killed - and the little red dot on his Dolce & Gabbana shirt suggests our crank caller isn't joking.

As the minutes tick by (the film takes place in real time, like Hitchcock's Rope) the tension mounts.

The disembodied voice on the other end of the line (supplied by Keifer Sutherland in a nice piece of voice casting) makes it clear to Stu that his very own judgement day is at hand.

This is something we've been crying out for - a slick thriller that doesn't fall into any of the cliche traps that have aborted so many other potentially good movies.

The biggest pitfall it avoids is the temptation to drag the story out to a cinema-friendly length, just to let the audience feel they got their "bang per buck".

Like Hitchcock's Rear Window, the movie has a single setting - almost all 81 minutes are played out on the street by the booth.

The window behind has an enormous display that asks: "Who do you think you are?"

Watching Phone Booth, I felt that maybe the ghost of Alfred Hitchcock HAD come back to show today's directors and studio execs how to REALLY wind an audience up.

Indeed Hitch often said that he could even direct a movie about a man in a phone booth.

But, actually, today it's Larry Cohen's brilliant script that should take the credit.

Farrell is excellent, breathing life to our wrong number who's about to be permanently disconnected.

Forest Whitaker turns in a nice performance as the policeman trying to discover just who's pushing the buttons.

Will Smith and Jim Carrey were both originally tipped to take the lead in this movie before it finally went to Farrell. This time, casting was right on target.

Mike Taylor