When his eyes begin to fail him, reclusive billionaire Mr. Harrigan (Donald Sutherland) hires a young boy named Craig (Jaeden Martell) to read to him. As the years go on, the two develop a strong friendship. One day, Craig decides to bring Mr. Harrigan into the 21st century and gives him a cellphone, which, much to his surprise, he takes to like a duck to water. Eventually, Mr. Harrigan passes away, and at the funeral, Craig places his phone inside the casket. Before long, Craig begins receiving ominous, indecipherable texts from his dead friend.
Written and directed by John Lee (The Little Things) Hancock, this adaptation of a Stephen King novella has echoes of Apt Pupil (older man bonding with a young boy) and just about every King story in which a kid uses supernatural powers to get back at his bullies. (Martell himself is no stranger to King adaptations after starring in It Chapter 1 and 2.) It exists in that middle ground of King films that aren’t scary enough to work as horror and aren't involving enough to function as a strong drama. That said, the performances are solid, and Hancock handles the admittedly thin premise with enough panache to keep you watching, even if the whole thing feels more like an overlong Tales from the Darkside episode than a Netflix Original. And like most Netflix Originals, it runs on about fifteen to twenty minutes too long.
Mr. Harrigan’s Phone never really makes any major missteps, but it doesn’t exactly knock it out of the park either. It’s probably most effective during the scenes where Martell gets butt dialed from beyond the grave. The subplot where he uses the phone as an instrument of revenge is kind of neat too. Despite being a little on the tame side, it remains a solid, disposable, little film that works more often than not.
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