"The Call" presents an interesting and unique concept that it mostly delivers on. We were surprised with how the time alteration aspect was explored and even presented on the big screen. The superb visual effects, cinematography, and acting all work together to make this a tight, tense-filled experience from start to finish.
Seo-yoon (Park Shin-hye) is a young woman who lost her father at a young age and had just found out that her mother was diagnosed with cancer. Struggling with her situation, she suddenly receives nightly calls from Young-sook (Jeon Jong-seo) - a woman who claims to be living in the past 20 years ago - and is living a trapped life with her abusive mother. With each of their situations dire, the two quickly become friends and bond together. That is until the two scheme together to alter the past that predictably changes to a future that leads to more catastrophe than benefits.
After our positive introduction to the film, you might think that "The Call" was a film that truly made us happy but in fact, it made us quite disappointed even frustrated. While there's no denying that the film was a great package overall, it also misses quite a lot when it came to maximizing its potentially awesome start. "The Call" was thrilling as a thriller film but was also thrilling with its sci-fi aspect especially in its first one and a half hour. The film was able to balance the yin and yang of time alteration both presenting its possible rewards if really done for good but also its riskier parts when done with selfish and naive motivations in place. It also helps that the visual effects, great cinematography, and sounds worked together to ramp up the tension and atmosphere between our two leads. The visual effects in particular was our favorite as it was able to portray the aspect of time alteration in a simple yet unique and spectacular way. The acting was also note-worthy as Park Shin-hye and Jeon Jong-seo deliver great performances. Between the two, Jeon Jong-seo was effective as the abused and depraved Young-sook. Unfortunately, the film failed to close it narrative in its last half hour - effectively turning into a predictable and generic film. It was as if they didn't know how to close it properly or maybe the concept itself had its limits in the first place. We also wanted to know our characters more. "The Call" glances over the backgrounds of our characters teasing viewers with tidbits but never explaining more especially on its more supernatural preconditions like Young-sook's apparently evil fate. Overall though, "The Call" is still a solid Korean film presenting strong points and technical work that will leave most audiences satisfied.
Rating: 4 reels
Why you should watch it:
- its premise and concept was intriguing and had a lot of great ideas on its time travel aspect
- the acting, setting, and technical work made this tension-filled from start to finish
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