Phone Booth/Phone Game

(Phone Game)

Another one with Colin Farrell. I think he is so good in this film that I actually had no clue he was Irish and that he wasn't a twat.

Plus there is Forest Whitaker in it and who doesn't like Forest? No, seriously, who? I want names. 

So Colin (aka Stu) is a busy guy who does PR I think, and an absolute jerk. He's got a lovely wife at home. But calls his girlfriend from the same phone booth every day so that his wife can't check on his phone. Tut tut. All goes well until one day, someone calls him in that specific phone box and threatens to kill him if he doesn't admit to his wife that he's a cheating bastard.

There are a few good things about this film, including the claustrophobic atmosphere of the said phone booth, helped with the real time narration. 

Just like for In Bruges, the title is quite matter of fact. It is short, simple and sweet and just gives you the location of the major part of the film.

Phone Game, though quite accurate (the guy calling Farrell is playing mind games with him) already gives away something that the original title does not and is yet a demonstration of Rule 3 which consists of translating a title into the same language (point being?).

Why Phone Game instead of Phone Booth, you ask? Well, I think that most French people wouldn't know what a booth is (more than people who don't know what a "game" is). 

And also that the "th" sound is a nightmare to pronounce.

You wouldn't want millions of people walking about calling your film "phone booff", would you?

(Yeah, not as glamorous, the French phone booff!)