2.0 out of 5 star rating<\/span> <\/span> <\/div> <\/div> The Stephen King-to-screen library can range from the sublime (The Shining, It) to the ridiculous (The Dark Tower, Thinner). John Lee Hancock\u2019s Mr. Harrigan\u2019s Phone falls somewhere towards the bottom end, which is a shame, as it starts promisingly. Jaeden Martell, who featured in the masterly It, plays Craig, a Maine teenager who lives with his father (Joe Tippett). His mother has passed away, and he\u2019s long felt a childish (and unjustified) sense of guilt. \u201cIf I could have controlled it, I could have stopped it,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Life changes when he gets a job working for John Harrigan (Donald Sutherland), a lonely, aged billionaire who never married and has no children. Craig (played in early scenes by Colin O\u2019Brien) is paid $5 an hour, three times a week, to sit and read aloud classics like Charles Dickens\u2019 Dombey and Son and Joseph Conrad\u2019s Heart of Darkness. On special occasions, Harrigan rewards Craig with a $1 lottery ticket \u2013 not exactly the most benevolent of presents. \u201cThe true value of money is measured in power,\u201d he informs Craig.<\/p>
When the film moves on five years, by which point O\u2019Brien morphs into Martell, it\u2019s the first day of high school. Craig is \u2013 surprise, surprise \u2013 picked upon a loutish, lumbering kid named Kenny (Cyrus Arnold). He asks Harrigan\u2019s advice: how do you deal with bullies? \u201cHarshly\u201d comes the reply from Sutherland who, even in an empty-ish supporting role, manages to make something worth watching. Then comes the rub, as Craig\u2019s father buys him an iPhone for Christmas \u2013 just at the point the Apple tech first hits the market.<\/p>\n
Entranced by it, Craig gets one for Harrigan, who initially dismisses the device, but as soon as he sees an app showing him stock-market numbers live, he\u2019s hooked. Being the tycoon he is, he even wonders why the web is \u201cspewing\u201d all this free information out when it could be monetised. While their relationship is intriguing, the story then switches when Craig finds the old man dead. He even puts Harrigan\u2019s phone in his coffin. But no sooner is he in the ground, then Craig starts getting weird, garbled text messages from beyond the grave.<\/p>\n
Has Craig\u2019s phone been hacked? Or, like the recent film The Black Phone, with Ethan Hawke, has he found a portal to commune with the dead? Seemingly, it\u2019s the latter, when harm comes to Kenny, the brutish bully who is still tormenting Craig. Is the dead Harrigan doing his bidding? It\u2019s very much a case of be careful what you wish for. But with this new-found power that Craig has \u2013 recalling the \u2018control\u2019 that he desired regarding his mother\u2019s death \u2013 very little actually happens in the film\u2019s second half.<\/p>\n