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Cellular (2004)

DVD Cover (New Line Studios)
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Overall Rating 59%
Overall Rating
Ranked #1,593
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Connections: Cellular

A young man receives a call on his cellular phone from a woman who says she's been kidnapped and thinks she's going to be killed soon, along with her husband and son whom the kidnappers have gone after next. The catch? She doesn't know where she is... and his cell phone battery might go dead soon. --IMDb
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Review by Chad
Added: February 27, 2005
Starting out our feature length film, we find Jessica Martin (Kim Basinger) sending her son Ricky (Adam Taylor Gordon) off to school. Poor kid, going through life with the name Ricky Martin. Anywho, after he gets on the school bus, Jessica returns to her house. She has a bit of a conversation with her housekeeper, when all of a sudden, a man breaks in through the glass door and shoots the housekeeper before pulling Jessica into his SUV and taking her back to his house. Ethan (Jason Statham) is the mans name, and he wants something from Jessica... and if she doesn't give it up, Ethan swears to kill her, her son, and her husband. The only problem here is that Jessica swears that he has the wrong family and she has no idea as to what it is he wants. Ethan locks her in the attic and leaves to take care of other business, but not before smashing the phone that was installed up there. Jessica, being the intelligent science teacher that she is, is able to tap a few wires together and place an outgoing phone call using the remains of the telephone.

We then cut on over to Ryan (Chris Evans), your typical mid-twenties slacker guy, who happens to be hanging out at the beach with one of his friends. He spots his ex-girlfriend walking around with some of her friends, and heads on over to see what's going on with her. She quickly brings that plan to an abrupt end, by telling him that they're through and that she wants nothing more to do with him. After a bit of pathetic begging by Ryan, she agrees to give him another chance... if he helps out with the charity operation that she's involved with. He agrees to the deal, and his task is to head over to the store and pick up some t-shirts that she had made. On his way over, his cell phone rings, with Jessica being the caller on the other end. She goes into the details on being kidnapped, needing help, etc... however, Ryan isn't convinced that the call is legit. She asks him to just take the phone to a cop, she he agrees to go ahead and do just that. His next stop turns out to be at the local police station, where he hands the phone over to Detective Mooney (William H. Macy), a desk-jockey of a cop that's nearing retirement. After some events forces Mooney to ignore the call, and after hearing Ethan return to yell at Jessica some more, Ryan starts to believe that the call is legit, and sets out on his quest to find and help her.

Here we have a film, that while full of holes in the storyline, turned out to be quite entertaining. Sure, those holes were large enough to drive a semi through. After dialing seven completely random numbers, what are the odds that someone living in the local area would be the one whose phone number you just dialed? How many cell phones do you know of that could survive being submerged under water (salt water, no less) and come out working with no problems? However, these holes (and quite a few others that pop up) can be overlooked in the greater scheme of things, and the rest of the movie does turn out to be an entertaining, though a bit mindless, experience. If you can get past the complete lack of realism in the overall storyline and just kick back and take it for what it is, it does move along nicely and doesn't come off near as bad as it could have. Jessica finds out from her kidnappers what they're planning to do next after they threaten her with those plans, and she then tells Ryan what's going on when they leave the room. Ryan attempts to save the son and husband, who were the main targets, with little success. That's about how the movie goes until the last act, but it does play out nicely. During the final act, the big twist is revealed (c'mon, you should have known that there had to be a twist), and even though it does manage to throw in just a few more holes in the overall storyline, it does keep things moving along. Basically, if you go in expecting some mindless fun with little in the way of realism, you may enjoy the things that are presented here.

The acting here was hit or miss amongst the characters. Lead actor Chris Evans (Ryan) does a good job with the role, though I could have done without the constant slew of one-liners that he drops from scene to scene. There were only a very select few of these that did anything to add to the film, and his line delivery during these supposed-to-be-funny lines really was lacking... however, he did good enough during the more serious parts of the film. Lead actress Kim Basinger (Jessica) is another story, sadly enough. The acting job that she turned in was nothing short of pathetic, and though I didn't count, I do believe that she may have set a record with the amount of times that she said "no, no, no!" in her scenes. Really, that seems to be her comeback to just about everything that is said to her, and it gets to be quite old, quite fast. When she's not dropping that N word more often than Eminem drops a profanity, her acting skills come off as merely lackluster... no sort of convincing portrayal of a woman in distress is to be had here. Jason Statham (Ethan) does a much better job with the character portrayal, pulling out the role of evil criminal almost to perfection. He did have a few flaws with the character, though I find that most of those flaws could be blamed on the lines given to him rather than his abilities.

Overall, worth a rental if you're looking for some mindless entertainment. Maybe I caught this one whilst in a giving mood, but it did keep me entertained, and really, that's about all that matters in the grand scheme of things. 6/10.
Moggy #1: Moggy - added July 17, 2005 at 3:25am
chris evans is cute, thats why i watched... otherwise... it was mediocre
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