The Call is a 2013 American crime thriller film directed by Brad Anderson and written by Richard D'Ovidio. The film stars Abigail Breslin as Casey Welson, a teenage girl kidnapped by a mysterious serial killer and Halle Berry as Jordan Turner, a 9-1-1 operator, still suffering emotionally from a prior botched 9-1-1 call, who receives Casey's call. Morris Chestnut, Michael Eklund, Michael Imperioli, and David Otunga also star. The story was originally envisioned as a television series, but D'Ovidio later rewrote it as a film. Filming began in July 2012 and spanned a period of 25 days, with all scenes being shot in California, mainly Burbank and Santa Clarita.
A screening of The Call was held at the Women's International Film Festival hosted at the Regal South Beach theater on February 26, 2013. TriStar Pictures released it to theatres on March 15, 2013. Considered to be high-concept by many reviewers, the film proved a commercial success, grossing over $68 million against a budget of $13 million. Halle Berry was nominated for Choice Movie Actress in a Drama at the Teen Choice Awards and Best Actress at the BET Awards while Michael Eklund won Best Supporting Performance by a Male in a Motion Picture at the Leo Awards. Critics gave the film mixed reviews, but praised Berry and Breslin's performances and the film's suspense. It is currently the most successful WWE produced film.
Plot Seasoned 9-1-1 operator Jordan Turner receives a call from 15-year-old Leah Templeton, fearing for her life as a man breaks into her home while her parents are away. Jordan calmly advises her to hide, which she does under the bed. After the intruder has searched the room thinking Leah has left, he proceeds to leave the house. The girl believes he has left, but when her call is disconnected, Jordan calls back, and the ring gives Leah's location away to the intruder. After the male intruder captures Leah, Jordan attempts to dissuade him, but he responds, "It's already done," and hangs up. The next day, a television report confirms that Leah has been murdered. Emotionally affected, Jordan decides she can no longer handle field calls.
Six months later, Jordan is training 9-1-1 operators. Teenager Casey Welson, after heading home from the Mall, is almost hit by a car in the parking garage. The driver apologises but then assaults her and throws her into the trunk of his car. Kidnapped, Casey uses a disposable phone to call 9-1-1. Brooke, a rookie operator, receives the call but can't handle it, so Jordan takes over. However, since Casey is using a burner phone, her exact location cannot be determined by GPS.
As the kidnapper drives, Jordan gets Casey to provide details about the man who abducted her and the colour of the car which she describes as a red/maroon 4 door car. Jordan gets her to knock off the tail light and wave to signal an incoming car. While waving, a woman driving behind sees Casey's arm, and calls 9-1-1 on a phone with GPS. With her disclosure of the location, Jordan shares the location to the police. The woman drives near the kidnapper’s car and tells 9-1-1 the plate number of the car, but it comes up as a stolen plate. While Jordan is questioning further, the woman overtakes the vehicle and looks at the kidnapper to get a description of him, but this spooks him and he abruptly exits the highway. The woman provides the road he took to Jordan. When Casey discovers paint in the trunk, Jordan has her pour the paint out of the tail-light hole to help police with tracking the car. The paint pouring attracts the attention of another driver, Alan Denado, but the kidnapper viciously bludgeons him into unconsciousness with a shovel and, assuming him to be dead, stuffs him into the trunk of his car, a black Lincoln Town Car Signature Limited, with Casey.
On the road again, Alan awakens in his trunk and begins panicking. Hearing his screams, the kidnapper pulls over and kills him. When he later stops for gas, Casey tries to crawl out of the trunk into the back seat and yell for help. When a gas attendant sees her and tries to open the car door, the kidnapper douses him with gasoline and burns him alive. Meanwhile, the police find the kidnapper's abandoned car, a red Toyota Camry LE in a parking lot off a nearby highway and, using fingerprints left at the scene, discover the kidnapper's identity, Michael Foster.
Arriving at their destination, Michael removes Casey from the trunk. He finds the phone in her pocket, still connected to 9-1-1. Jordan informs Michael that the police have discovered his identity and have enough evidence to charge him for his crimes, advising him to surrender and to not hurt Casey. Before smashing the phone, Michael responds, "It's already done,” making Jordan realise that Michael was also behind Leah’s death.
Meanwhile, Jordan’s boyfriend, police officer Paul Phillips, and others raid Michael's home, finding only his wife and children. When an officer finds a photo of Michael and his sister, Melinda, Paul notices Casey's physical resemblance. Additionally, their childhood home is revealed by Michael's wife to have burned down, although a nearby cottage, which police later raid but then find it empty, still remains.
As Michael begins to torture Casey, now restrained to a foldable wheelchair and subjected to nitrous oxide, she manages to spray him in the eyes and escape, but is later recaptured after being horrified by what she finds in another room. Determined to rescue her, Jordan drives to the cottage where she finds a number of photos of Michael with his leukemia-stricken sister. Stepping outside, she recognises sounds from an outdoor flagpole — exactly what she'd heard in the background at the end of the 9-1-1 call. Next to the flagpole, she also finds a trap door where the primary house once stood. Jordan accidentally drops her cell phone down the cellar and climbs down to get it.
Jordan hides from Michael in the cellar. Looking around, it becomes clear Michael had incestuous feelings towards his sister and was distraught when she fell ill and died. Michael keeps a prop head which he treats as his sister. He has been killing and scalping people similar to her since then, trying to find scalps that match his sister's hair, which she lost from chemotherapy.
Jordan soon finds Casey strapped to the wheelchair and attacks Michael as he begins to scalp Casey’s forehead. Jordan frees her and they try to escape, during which Casey stabs Michael in the back with scissors. Removing the scissors to hurt Casey, Jordan and Casey kick him back down into the cellar, knocking him unconscious. Instead of calling 9-1-1, they tape him to the same chair he used to torture Casey. When Michael regains consciousness, the women reveal that they intend to leave him there to die. Casey will claim she blacked out and escaped, and Jordan found her in the woods, while everyone will assume that Michael has fled. He first insults them, then pleads that they cannot do this to him. Jordan replies with his own words, "It's already done," and locks the door as Michael screams in horror.
Cast
Halle Berry as Jordan Turner, a 9-1-1 operator Abigail Breslin as Casey Welson, a kidnapped teenager Morris Chestnut as Officer Paul Phillips, Jordan's boyfriend Michael Eklund as Michael Foster, Casey's kidnapper and Leah Templeton's killer Michael Imperioli as Alan Denado, Michael's victim David Otunga as Officer Jake Devan Justina Machado as Rachel José Zúñiga as Marco Roma Maffia as Maddy Evie Thompson as Leah Templeton Denise Dowse as Flora Ella Rae Peck as Autumn Jenna Lamia as Brooke Ross Gallo as Josh Shawnee Badger as Melinda Foster Tara Platt as Female Trainee
Production
Writing and casting
Screenwriter Richard D'Ovidio was inspired to script the story after his wife heard an NPR segment with a 9-1-1 operator discussing her job. He began to research the subject and visited the Los Angeles Metropolitan Communications Dispatch Center (MCDC). Finding the center, which has backup generators, bulletproof windows, and a moat surrounding the building, to be "pretty amazing," he decided to shed light on what he viewed as a previously overlooked occupation. The story was originally conceptualized as a television series titled The Hive (a reference to the constant calls and conversations sounding like bees buzzing), but D'Ovidio decided to redraft it as a film on realizing that "the operators couldn't be the ones kicking in doors and going out into the field" all the time. As a result, what was planned to be the pilot episode was expanded and revised as a movie.
For most of the film, Berry's character, Turner, the 9-1-1 operator, does stay inside "the hive" before becoming actively involved in the search for Breslin's character, Welson, the kidnapped caller. D'Ovidio chose two female leads, explaining, "I wanted strong women... I think it was appropriate here, since most 911 call operators are women." Berry remarked, "I love the idea of being a part of a movie that was so empowering for women. We don't often get to play roles like this, where ordinary people become heroic and do something extraordinary." D'Ovidio chose to tell the story from the perspective of two characters—the operator and the caller—believing that it would become repetitive if it focused on only one. As a result, he switched perspectives every ten pages when writing the screenplay. As well as collaborating on the story with his wife, Nicole and Jon Bokenkamp, he accepted suggestions from Berry, Breslin and Eklund: "Halle came in with some great notes and Abigail and Michael and it started to flesh things out. I'm not one to say 'no' to a great suggested line of dialogue. It just makes me look better as a writer! I feel it's a very collaborative process, and some of the happiest accidents happen when you just listen to people. When someone comes up to you and says, 'Why don't we do it this way?' I think that it's important to listen."
Chestnut, who plays Phillips, a police officer and Turner's boyfriend, prepared by riding along with Los Angeles police officers to observe what it is like to be an officer in a squad car and Berry prepared for the role by visiting a call center and observing the operators at work. She told a Miami Herald interviewer, "You get a different perspective by doing research... You can't know what its like to be a cop even though you've seen it in the movies. But nobody ever saw a 9-1-1 center. I thought they lived in the ground somewhere! It was interesting to see who they were and how they deal and how stressful it can be. I was a wreck watching them. They would just be as cool as can be doing their thing. I thought, 'I could never do this job.'"
Filming Producers scheduled for The Call to be filmed in Canada in June 2011 after they failed to make the cut for a California tax credit. With a low budget of $13 million, they settled on Ottawa, Ontario, where director Anderson had just finished another project. However, the California Film Commission (CFC) called back nine months later and informed them that the waiting list had been largely cleared and that they now qualified for $1.9 million in tax deduction. According to Producer Michael Helfant, they were "literally days from starting to put down a deposit." Berry was reportedly pleased with the news, wanting to stay in Los Angeles and the CFC helped secure film locations for the project.