Review of The Call

This started out as a generic story well-told by a solid cast. Halle Berry and Abigail Breslin had great chemistry over the phone, their dynamic backed up by a lot of solid supporting actors and even having me tear up a bit as the two of them bond in the crucible of Breslin's ordeal. The movie's runtime didn't leave much room for establishing character, but that's okay, sometimes its better to focus on the story. But then I get to the end, and the suspension bridge of disbelief suddenly snaps out from underneath me as the movie takes me waaaaay offroad. To sum up the ending: Halle Berry drops her phone down a hole leading to the serial killer's secret lair when she goes to call 911, so she climbs down to grab it leading to a short game of cat and mouse that ends with her pulling Breslin out just in the nick of time. All very familiar territory so far (even if I was screaming at the screen for her just to climb back up the ladder and finish calling for help to the nearby cops) but then after facing the bad guy and saving the girl in the big scary climax, the two of them team up to turn what was a heartfelt and poignant connection into a twisted revenge fantasy. Breslin, who to that point had been well-acting the part of a typical teenage girl, suddenly goes rogue and stops the dedicated 911 operator from dialing 911 so that the two of them can GO BACK DOWN THE HOLE and trap the bad guy in his own lair truss him up to die. ...huh? This 'twist' (if you can call it that) was so unexpected, unwarranted, and abrupt that it was like walking face-first into a sliding glass door that you thought was open, like they turfed the original ending and brought in the writer of Saw to shake things up a bit. Lets talk about consequences here. The ADULT and supposed professional Berry, who had up to that point been nothing but a decent human being, helps the TEENAGE Breslin commit murder. An act the poor girl will have to live with the rest of her life, setting aside the trauma of being abducted and nearly scalped in the first place. But worse than that, they told the world that the SERIAL KILLER had simply disappeared. Which would mean no closure for the families of his other victims, many of whom were likely unidentified as there were a lot of scalps in that mini-fridge. AND EVEN WORSE THAN THAT! The ending we are left with shows the empathetic 911 operator, whose very job requires her to deal with people on a daily basis who are terrified for their lives, happily willing to leave a whole city of people to live in constant fear of a dead man. All so that the writers could find a way to throw a lame pithy line back in the bad guy's face. Sigh. 3 Stars. Would have been 8, but for the truly terrible ending.