LOS ANGELES, March 15, (Agencies): Despite its schlocky, high-concept premise — 911 operator tries to save the life of the panicked teen girl on the other end of the phone — somebody clearly tried to make “The Call” into a real movie.
They hired Brad Anderson (“Session 9”, “The Machinist”) to direct and loaded the cast with sharp performers, from Halle Berry as the operator and Abigail Breslin as the girl in peril to plum supporting roles for Morris Chestnut, Roma Maffia and HBO alums Michael Imperioli and Justina Machado.
And for most of the running time, they get away with it — until the script by Richard D’Ovidio (“Exit Wounds”) puts down the phone, plunging its heroine into a standard serial-killer thriller and, as a bonus, making her act like an idiot.
When “The Call” channels Cocteau’s “The Human Voice” and focuses on Berry and her headset, the movie maintains an entertaining level of suspense; when it becomes yet another “Silence of the Lambs” rip-off, you can feel the tension seep away.

Anxiety
Experienced 911 staffer Jordan (Berry) stands out among the worker bees at “the hive,” the central complex for all of LA’s emergency services. But when she’s distracted after a romantic coffee-break visit by her cop boyfriend Paul (Chestnut), she makes a fatal error, calling back the young victim of a home invasion. The phone’s ring gives away the girl’s hiding place, and Jordan hears the killer dispatch his victim.
Fast-forward to six months later: Jordan is on anxiety meds and has given up the switchboard to become an instructor. When one of her trainees is unable to deal with a panicked call from Casey (Breslin), who has just been snatched from a local mall, Jordan must return to duty.
Anderson masterfully weaves between Jordan and Casey’s ever-more-panicked conversation and the widespread manhunt for the girl; adding to the anxiety is actor Michael Eklund, who plays the kidnapper as twitchy enough to be capable of very bad things yet smart enough to possibly get away with it. When “The Call” works, it’s a supremely effective B-thriller.
If only the film trusted its strengths. Somewhere along the line, it was decided that it wasn’t enough for Jordan to be a really great 911 operator. Apparently, she also had to be a recklessly foolhardy vigilante, pursuing her own clues and stumbling into the bad guy’s murder den unarmed and without backup.
It feels like a real betrayal to Berry, who’s actually investing some soul into this character. (No easy feat, as she’s been saddled with a wig that calls to mind both Ronald McDonald and Patti LaBelle circa 1975.) All we know about Jordan is how she does her job, but that’s all we need to know, and for this competent woman to turn into another blithering slasher heroine feels like a massive failure of nerve.
“The Call” turns out to be more interesting than what the trailers promised, yes, but by getting hung up in an unconvincing and ill-conceived third act, we’re left with a disappointing disconnect.
 

You practically need an advanced degree in physics to fully comprehend the convoluted physical machinations depicted in “Upside Down,” Juan Solanas’ dizzyingly loopy sci-fi romance. Depicting the Romeo and Juliet-style romance between lovers from twin planets with opposite gravitational pulls, this head-scratcher boasts visual imagination to spare even as its logistical complexities and heavy-handed symbolism ultimately prove off-putting.
The lovers — none so subtly named Adam (Jim Sturgess) and Eden (Kirsten Dunst) — first meet as children who manage to forge a spiritual connection even if they’re literally upside down from each other. Unfortunately, contact between the inhabitants of the two worlds is strictly forbidden by the dominant one, Up Top, which exploits the resources of its neighbor planet, Down Below. Connecting the two worlds is a massive tower owned by an exploitative megacorporation named — what else? — TransWorld.
Ten years after their initial encounter, which ended with Eden apparently falling to her death, Adam is a lowly scientist working at TransWorld who has managed to invent an anti-aging cream made from the pollen of pink bees (really). He suddenly comes across the now grown-up Eden, who has no recollection of him thanks to a case of amnesia from her fall.
So he sets out to woo her all over again, a task made more complicated by the fact that the only way he can enter her world is to don gravity-defying anti-matter that inconveniently bursts into flame after a short time.

Images
If you’ve managed to follow all of this so far, then you indeed might enjoy the undeniably clever otherworldly setup for what otherwise is a fairly pedestrian love story. The writer-director produces many impressively striking images, many of them without the benefit of CGI effects, to render his fantastical setting. Particularly impressive is a virtuoso set piece involving a flaming Adam desperately propelling himself into an upside down body of water.
But despite their dual-worlds environment, the central characters ultimately are too one-dimensional to sustain our interest. Sturgess overplays the puppy-dog charm, while Dunst wears her natural radiance like a comfortable overcoat.
The film does manage to spring to life with every appearance by Timothy Spall as Adam’s friendly but ill-fated co-worker. The veteran British actor delivers a wonderfully ebullient and moving turn that lends a genuine humanity to the otherwise overly contrived and mechanistic proceedings.
“Upside Down”, a Millennium Entertainment release, is rated PG-13 for some violence. 100 minutes.