Channelling the sleaze and moxie embodied by Tony Curtis' self-serving press agent Sidney Falco in Sweet Smell of Success, Dubliner Colin Farrell makes a bid for Hollywood stardom with his riveting portrayal of amoral New York publicist Stu Shepard in Joel Schumacher's mildly diverting Phone Booth. If the film as a whole matched Farrell's performance, success would have smelled sweet indeed. But the usual suspects-an underdeveloped script and pedestrian direction-conspire to keep the film from really taking off.

Schumacher, the consummate Hollywood director-for-hire responsible for crap like D.C. Cab and Batman and Robin as well as more interesting films like Falling Down and Flawless, made Hollywood take notice of Farrell when he cast him in his Vietnam-era Tigerland. After Spielberg had Farrell play Tom Cruise's nemesis in Minority Report, Farrell was ready to make the leap into the big leagues as a major leading man. His Stu Shepard, master of the cell phone conversation and a none-to-truthful-yet-likeable sleazoid, is just that leap.

Introduced strutting down a New York street simultaneously lecturing his unpaid intern/assistant and handling a myriad of calls from his clients, wife (Radha Mitchell) and potential new girlfriend (Katie Holmes), Stu is New York hustle personified. Brash, brimming with confidence and all too aware of his good looks and ubermensch attitude, Stu has a classic case of hubris. And, as anyone who remembers high school lit class knows, with hubris comes the fall.

Stu's fall comes through the most seemingly innocent of actions. He answers a ringing public pay phone-and hears a measured, vaguely menacing voice (Kiefer Sutherland's) say, "If you hang up. I will kill you." Thus begins Stu's re-education at the hands of a psycho sniper who does indeed intend to kill Stu should Stu hang up or disobey his orders.

And "re-education" is the key word. Sutherland's omniscient-he knows all about Stu's life-disembodied voice is meant to be like the Old Testament (read: vengeful) voice of God, ready to judge and exact revenge for what he sees as Stu's immoral ways. "You are guilty of inhumanity to your fellow man," the voice lugubriously intones, and nothing short of a full confession of wrongs committed to all affected will save Stu.

It's a good idea but legendary writer-director Larry Cohen's (It's Alive!, God Told Me To, Q-The Winged Serpent) script is both too shallow and strangely old-fashioned to succeed. For example, Stu is only contemplating cheating on his wife-and we are to believe that, in 2003, this is enough to have the wrath of God descend from the heavens and smite him? As allegory, it won't wash.

For his part, Schumacher brings an obviousness and a lack of panache to the proceedings. Regarding the former: Stu's phone booth is set in front of a large billboard, prominently displayed, that asks the question, "Who do you think you are?" Subtle, that. As for the latter, if it wasn't for Farrell's star-making turn and Forest Whitaker's brooding, depressed cop you'd come away from the film with almost no memory of anything at all-locations, and visual style are nondescript to the point of nonexistence. Still, Farrell alone is almost worth the price of admission.