(Chris, you already have my number… Meet me in Capri this October? No clothing necessary…)
CAST: Chris Evans, Kim Basinger, Jason Statham, William H. Macy, Richard Burgi, Rick Hoffman, Jessica Biel.
DIRECTOR: David R. Ellis
WARNING: Some SPOILERS and a couple of really durable cellular phones - straight ahead…
IT’S LIKE THIS: You gotta say this about the hero of our next review: he sure is having a fucked-up day. Good thing he looks a hell of a lot like Chris Evans, because that’s a lot of compensation for the shit he has to go through just to make it to 5 pm. His name is Ryan, and just like any other smoking-hot So-Cal twentysomething, he was planning to spend his day doing the following: (1) walking around Venice Beach with his shirt off (YAY!); (2) annoying the living shit out of ex-gal pal Chloe (Jessica Biel); and, uh, (3) walking around Venice Beach with his shirt off (DOUBLE YAY!!!). Trust me - a bod like that needs to be advertised as much as possible.
Anyhow, all of Ryan’s plans for flashing his hairy pecs and irritating Chloe go down the toilet when he answers his cell phone and it turns out to be a wrong number. Now, unlike most of us who get wrong numbers that are harmless (or lucky - like one of my Aunts who met her latest boyfriend that way - Are you fucking kidding me?), Ryan’s unexpected caller turns out to be Jessica Martin (Kim Basinger), a terrified chick who claims to have been kidnapped with her family being threatened elsewhere and she is calling from a smashed phone and was lucky connecting with any phone at all so could Ryan please please please please please please help them before the kidnapers murder them all?
Like I said: a fucked-up day. Should’ve just let it go to voicemail, Ryan.
Before you know it, Ryan is zipping all over L.A., doing the following: (1) trying to keep his call to Jessica alive; (2) trying to simultaneously alert the police; (3) trying to avoid the bad guy kidnapper Ethan (Jason Statham); and (4) looking ultra-hot doing it. At the end of the day, that red T-shirt was looking nice and sweaty. Hey, Chris, can you hook me up with the wardrobe manager from CELLULAR so I can claim that shirt for myself? And if it’s been washed, can you sweat in it for me again? Then I can add it to Russell Crowe’s loin-cloth from GLADIATOR in my collection. Grazie mille…
THE DUDE (OR DUDETTE) MOST LIKELY TO SAVE THE DAY: Obviously, this award goes to my boy Ryan - but also to Detective Mooney (William H. Macy), the soon-to-retire LAPD cop who gets pulled into the fray…
EYE CANDY MOST LIKELY TO FIRE UP A WOODY: Come on, people. You already know who’s getting this award.
Don’t you just want to rub that belly until his leg starts kicking furiously?
MOST INTENTIONALLY EXCITING SCENE: Jessica first making contact with Ryan - then slowly getting him to believe her story.
MOST UNINTENTIONALLY EXCITING SCENE: Ryan tussling with a jackass high-powered attorney for the latter’s car (and cell phone). Ha ha…
HOTTEST SCENE: Besides the whole “Shirtless on Venice Beach” sequence (see pics above), the scene where Ryan finally has to pull a gun on a whole cell phone store - just to get a fucking charger to keep his call from dying. Love a guy who takes charge. Especially if he looks like Chris Evans… Oh, and the scene where Ryan discovers one of our old sex tapes (I‘m blushing). Kidding. It’s a video revealing why the bad guys are threatening Jessica’s family. But I like the sex tape theory better. YEAH!
INQUIRING MINDS WANT TO KNOW: Will Ryan be able to save Jessica and her family? Why are the baddies after them anyway? Will Ryan’s cellphone battery finally die? And with it, any hope of saving Jessica’s family? Or will Ryan find a way to keep the call alive? Will Detective Mooney be able to help? Or is he going to be another casualty? How will this all end? And the most important question of all: will Ryan be really pissed off when he discovers that his minutes have all been used up? YIKES!
WHY YOU SHOULD WATCH “CELLULAR”: As with the previous ENTRAPMENT, if you like sleek, entertaining, and just a tad contrived thrillers with stunning and charismatic leads. And if you don’t mind turning your brain off for a couple of hours of decent thrills…
WHY YOU MAY NOT ENJOY “CELLULAR”: As with the previous ENTRAPMENT, if you have a hard time suspending your disbelief. And if you don’t allow the sheer energy of a production and beauty of its stars to compensate for some contrived plotting.
BUT, SERIOUSLY: In our review for SPEED (review # 319), we talked about how a confidently-executed film with relatable characters can paper over any weaknesses and/or implausibilities of plot and story. SPEED became a classic not just because director Jan De Bont helmed the film with a bracing kinetic grace that kept audiences on the edge of their seats, but also because Keanu Reeves, Sandra Bullock, Joe Morton, Dennis Hopper, Jeff Daniels, Alan Ruck, and the rest of the cast played characters that we could easily identify with. Because of this connection, we could feel the danger of their situation - resulting in a visceral action-thriller that has been much-imitated but seldom-equaled. The fact that SPEED started out as a DIE HARD-semi-clone but went on to carve its own niche in the minds and hearts of movie-goers is further proof of its strength.
Just as DIE HARD spawned numerous clones, SPEED has its own imitators. The best of them is CELLULAR. Whereas in SPEED the centerpiece of the story was a speeding city bus that was rigged to explode if it dropped below 50 mph, CELLULAR’s moving target is a human: Ryan, the carefree Southern California hunk who is forced to grow up and go on the run to save a stranger’s life when he gets a random call for help from her. Just like the bus in SPEED couldn’t slow down without exploding (and killing everyone on it), Ryan in CELLULAR can’t slow down for even a minute for fear of running out of time to help Jessica. A dying cell phone battery, the possibility of the call dropping, the imminent return of the baddies, inaccessible authority figures: these are all the factors that threaten both Ryan and Jessica's call.
As with SPEED, we start with characters are who sympathetic and make sense. Kim Basinger’s Jessica Martin is a schoolteacher and good wife/mother. We get a nice glimpse of her putting her son Ricky on the bus, before she returns home to get ready for work. Basinger does a good job of putting forth all of Jessica’s decency, resourcefulness, and vulnerability. And the woman can scream. Director David Ellis uses the sleepy suburban morning vibe to lull us into a sense of complacency - before smashing it with the sudden entrance of the bad guys. From that point on, the chase begins. Basinger gets a lot of mileage out of her role, considering she’s pretty much stuck in one room throughout most of the movie.
Conversely, Ryan’s introductory sequences on Venice Beach with his buddies and ex-girlfriend Chloe are energetic, sexy, and humorous - echoing the strengths of lead actor Chris Evans, who delivers a star-making performance here. Evans has always been something of a quirky, goofy character actor in a leading man’s body, and while he spends most of his time running or driving with a phone glued to his ear, he still manages to breathe some quirkiness into the role. It’s primarily because of Evans’ innate likability and magnetism that Ryan becomes a strong protagonist to root for. Both Ryan and Jessica’s intro scenes before they are thrown into the deep end are vital because it allows us to bond with them.
William H. Macy is another strong point as the about-to-retire Sgt Mooney, who crosses paths with Ryan, then separates from him again - but can’t shake the feeling that something bad is happening. As with Evans, Macy imbues the role with a certain goofy charm which aids considerably in putting us in his corner. Indeed, one of the pleasures of CELLULAR is watching the quirky Mooney (he’s retiring to open a spa) slowly piece things together and risk his life to help Ryan save Jessica’s family.
Jason Statham and Richard Burgi are fine as, respectively: (1) Ethan, the near-silent baddie who kidnaps Jessica; and (2) Craig, Jessica’s husband whose business activities inadvertently endanger them all. Jessica Biel has a nice small role as Chloe, Ryan’s exasperated ex-girlfriend whom he tries to win back. Then there’s Rick Hoffman who has a hilarious bit part as an obnoxious lawyer whose Porsche and cellphone end up becoming important plot points.
There are those who argue that CELLULAR should’ve taken a more streamlined and less extravagant route. That is, that the whole thing should’ve been told from Ryan’s viewpoint, with us never meeting or seeing Jessica until the end - and only hearing her terrified voice on the phone, and with Mooney not helping Ryan. Basically Ryan would’ve been on his own. This would’ve been a much more Hitchcockian approach, and created a far more eerie, disturbing, and suspenseful atmosphere.
However, I also have to say that I like the more kinetic way in which CELLULAR was executed. True, it’s more action-oriented than suspense-oriented, but I think the intent was to create a version of SPEED with a young man on the run, instead of a bus. In that regard, CELLULAR succeeded. It’s a solidly entertaining ride that is anchored by Chris Evans, Kim Basinger, and William H. Macy, and it can stand proudly next to SPEED as an example of a movie that “never lets up”.
