This is a compact thriller from 2013 which is now available to watch on Netflix UK. Set in a contemporary Los Angeles, Jordan Turner (Halle Berry), is a confident 911 dispatcher working at LAPD's main call centre. One night a call comes in on a landline from what sounds like a teenage girl who's says she's home alone and is reporting a prowler breaking into her house. Turner advises her to hide behind any locked door but the best the frantic teen can find is under her bed.
The intruder initially does not find her, but the call suddenly disconnects and without thinking, Turner rings back and the sound of the incoming call alerts the male Prowler in the house. There is a shrill scream and the last thing heard at the call centre is a man's voice saying "It's already done"! Jordan is stunned and removes herself from her desk. Soon, her Supervisor advises her to go home to decompress. The next day, when Turner is back on shift, she sees on the big TV, the worst possible news that a blonde teenage girl's dead body is found in a shallow grave outside the city.
It's now Six Months Later. We see a couple of blonde high school age girls enjoying a fun day at the mall. Even though they both have smartphones, one girl suddenly takes a call on a burner style phone that she says her boyfriend got her so that they can talk privately, as it's deliberately hard to trace. Meanwhile we see Jordan taking an inductee class of potential new recruits at the same 911 call centre.
She begins a tour of the facility with them as she's now designated as a teacher there. Later at the mall's food court, the taller girl gets a text on her main device and says to her friend that she has to leave immediately and rushes away with her shopping, without finishing her meal. Annoyed, the shorter girl eats up and starts clearing away their food cartons and discovers that her friend has left her burner phone behind. She pockets it and making her way home through the mall's multi-story car park, she's nearly run down, and then grabbed, by a white male in a baseball cap and sunglasses as he smashes her smartphone and uses morphine to render her unconscious.
Back at the call centre complex, the induction tour has reached the shop floor where Jordan is describing to the group the process of an incoming call with one of the newer dispatchers. Cut to the dark interior of the boot of a moving car where the shorter girl begins to wake. She remembers the little burner phone in her jeans pocket and calls 911. That call comes into the very dispatcher Jordan is standing next to and soon it becomes very clear there are similarities to the traumatic call she herself took six months previous. As the totally frantic screaming audio of the young girl's voice continues, the rookie dispatcher quickly seems out of her depth and Jordan takes over the desk and call. Suppressing her own latent PTSD, she quickly calms the caller down and establishes the teenager's name is Casey.
This concise, claustrophobic thriller keeps you on the edge of your seat as the quickly-unfolding events become progressively frenetic. The (15) rating is justified as the graphic violence, from the get go, starts ramping up. There are very strong performances from both Halle Berry and Abigail Breslin as Casey - and I felt that the growing connection between dispatcher and abductee genuine, as the epic 911 call plays out. The fact that the burner phone is hard to trace is key to the plot here as the dramatic situation plays out across the City.
One other notable character is LAPD Officer, Paul Phillips played by Morris Chestnut - who is Turner's Boyfriend - together with his cop partner, are part of the police contingent following the continuing trail of the ruthless and determined kidnapper. At just over 90 minutes, this should easily be a gripping one-hit watch on the sofa with your favourite snacks!

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