The CallMovie Reviews

So-so
Avg. Critic Score: 51 out of 100 Mixed or average reviews Metascore® based on all critic reviews
Information for Parents:
17 not for kids
Read Common Sense Media review

Critic scores range from 0 to 100, with higher scores indicating more favorable reviews.

  • 75
    San Francisco Chronicle | Mick LaSalle

    The Call might not be a classic for the ages, but for a Friday night? For a movie to take people out of themselves? And to make them marvel at the viewing experience that just happened to them? This one is hard to beat. Read full review

  • 75
    Entertainment Weekly |

    Surprisingly good, and surprisingly gruesome, fun. Read full review

  • 70
    The Hollywood Reporter | Todd McCarthy

    The Call for the most part is a tense, extreme-jeopardy thriller that delivers the intended goods. Read full review

  • 60
    New York Daily News | Elizabeth Weitzman

    No one’s winning any awards for The Call. But at least the award winners know how to make it worth our while. Read full review

  • 50
    Philadelphia Inquirer | Steven Rea

    The film is at once shamelessly transparent, manipulative, and far-fetched, and impossibly suspenseful. You'll want to take a shower afterward - that's how icky you'll feel. Read full review

  • 50
    Boston Globe | Ty Burr

    You’ve seen pieces of this movie in “Psycho,” “Silence of the Lambs,” and 2004’s “Cellular.” Still, the early scenes in the Hive give The Call a needed novelty: It’s a workplace drama, and the work is responding to other people’s desperate worst-case scenarios. Read full review

  • 50
    The Globe and Mail (Toronto) | Liam Lacey

    For its last third, the entire thing gets a Frankensteinian head transplant, and turns into derivative serial-killer nonsense. Read full review

  • 50
    USA Today | Claudia Puig

    The action starts with a bang, but deteriorates and grows more absurd as the story strays farther from the LAPD call center. Read full review

  • 50
    Chicago Sun-Times |

    A sputtering, so-so B thriller with a neat hook but very little personality. Read full review

  • 45
    NPR | Ian Buckwalter

    The shoddy attention to character, plausibility and detail is particularly surprising coming from Anderson, a director of smart indie thrillers like "The Machinist," "Session 9" and "Transsiberian." He's been a gifted filmmaker with a talent for creating chilling tension through meticulous control of just these elements. Read full review

View more reviews for The Call on Metacritic

Information for Parents
Common Sense Media says not for kids Gripping thriller has tons of violence directed at a teen.
What Parents Need to Know Parents need to know that The Call is a gripping but very violent thriller about a heroic 911 operator trying to rescue a kidnapped teen girl. The girl is punched, beaten, stripped to her bra, and briefly tortured. Her age isn't specifically mentioned in the movie, but actress Abigail Breslin is 16. There are also scenes in which characters are stabbed with a screwdriver and lit on fire. Other aspects of the movie are fairly mild, including language, with just a few uses of "f--k" and "s--t," as well as some mild sexual innuendo involving teens (and one grown-up kiss). Several of the 911 calls heard on the soundtrack describe acts of violence, including drug use. Ultimately, because all of the movie's intense, serial killer-related violence centers around a teen victim, this movie isn't recommended for any but the most mature viewers.
  • Families can talk about The Call's intense violence. How did it affect you? Do you think the story could have been told with milder violence?
  • Why do you think there are so many movies (and other types of media) about serial killers? Why are we so fascinated by them?
  • Do you feel that the teen characters were sexualized in any way? If so, do you feel this was acceptable or unacceptable? Why?
  • What's the movie's take on revenge? Do you think it's realistic? Justifiable?
The good stuff
  • message true1 Positive messages: A woman learns to face her fears, though she marches into a dangerous situation to do so. She also tries to forgive herself for a past mistake. On the downside, the movie promotes revenge.
  • rolemodels true1 Positive role models: The movie takes a close look at the difficult work of 911 operators, who can be seen as heroic in a certain light. One such operator, the movie's main character, works tirelessly to save a teen girl's life.
What to watch for
  • violence false5 Violence: A teenage girl is kidnapped, punched, beaten, stripped down to her bra, and briefly tortured. She's shown with a swollen eye. In an earlier scene, a prowler breaks into a home and attacks another teen girl. This girl is later shown dead (pixilated) on the evening news. A man is beaten with a shovel, stabbed with a screwdriver, and killed. A serial killer's gruesome hideout is shown, with bloody smears on the walls and a collection of girls' scalps. A man is lit on fire with gasoline and a lighter. Verbal descriptions of violent crimes and murders heard on the 911 calls.
  • sex false2 Sexy stuff: A teen girl is shown in her bra, but it's not in a sexual/romantic context. Two teens talk about sexual matters at a mall, with mild innuendo (with phrases like "bone you"). Two adults kiss.
  • language false4 Language: "Motherf----r," "s--t," "bitch," "hell," "oh my God," and "goddamn" are all used a few times each.
  • consumerism false1 Consumerism: A Pepsi logo is seen (backwards, in a window) in one scene. Another scene takes place in a mall, though businesses are never shown clearly.
  • drugsalcoholtobacco false1 Drinking, drugs and smoking: Drugs are mentioned during several of the 911 calls in the opening scenes. Two teen girls mention that someone they know "smokes dope."
An independent nonprofit dedicated to providing families the information they need to help kids thrive in a world of media and technology. © Common Sense Media Inc. 2010. All rights reserved.

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