Cellular (2004)
So, you’re driving along one day in your and your mobile/ cell phone goes off. Using your phone while driving issues aside, if the person on the other end told you they had been kidnapped and needed your help, what would you do? Would you even take it seriously?
This is what happens to Ryan (Chris Evans) while he is running an errand to win back his girlfriend. The voice on the other end belongs to high school science teacher Jessica Martin (Kim Basinger), who has been abducted by a group of thugs led by Jason Statham and being held in an attic somewhere in the same city as Ryan. Armed only with a somewhat broken but still somewhat functional landline telephone, she managed to dial out, but only to random phone numbers - the powers of Plot deciding that it’s Ryan that picks up. When Ryan finally realises Jessica is in fact not bullshitting him, the race is on to see if Ryan can maintain the phone connection with Jessica (there’s no way for her to redial to him directly), if Ryan can save Jessica and her family before it’s too late, and if Sergeant Bob Mooney (William H. Macy) can figure out what the fuck is actually going on before he retires to run a beauty salon day spa with his wife.
There is something to be said for movies that rely on a particular piece of rapidly evolving technology - they date rather quickly. Watching a 2004 movie about phones in 2014… yeah… well. Maybe some aspects of this film were more believable back in 2004. I’m trying to remember back to 2004 and there’s some things they were having Nokia phones do in the film that I’m pretty sure they didn’t do. Maybe Nokia was top of the line then? You’re asking me to think back a decade and I didn’t even HAVE a mobile phone at that point!
I propose a drinking game for this movie - one sip everytime Kim Basinger’s character says shrieks something like ‘we’re going to die’… guaranteed to have you pass out by the end of the film. Oh lordy lordy lordy, I think she was trying to act… I’d like to believe she was trying to act. Actually, I could say that for most of the cast. Chris Evans and William H. Macy are the two better performances, but then again, I’ve never seen Macy turn in a bad performance. Chris does his best with a character that starts out as a bit of an airhead that is thrust into a position of great responsibility. He gets his shirt off in the beginning, so there’s that too.
I’ll be honest, I’ll never turn down an chance to see the Cevans with his shirt off.
Is this a good movie? Ehhhhh… It bills itself as a thriller and while there are a few ‘thrilling’ parts, but it’s so very silly in parts it’s more of a comedy. This is a good film to watch with friends and heckle it over a drink or two. I did end up finding this in a discount bin at Red Dot (a super discount chain) and I paid a whole $5 for it. Any more than that and I would have been a bit ripped off…
This was first posted at http://purrdencechris.tumblr.com/post/90253385597/cellular-2004
This is what happens to Ryan (Chris Evans) while he is running an errand to win back his girlfriend. The voice on the other end belongs to high school science teacher Jessica Martin (Kim Basinger), who has been abducted by a group of thugs led by Jason Statham and being held in an attic somewhere in the same city as Ryan. Armed only with a somewhat broken but still somewhat functional landline telephone, she managed to dial out, but only to random phone numbers - the powers of Plot deciding that it’s Ryan that picks up. When Ryan finally realises Jessica is in fact not bullshitting him, the race is on to see if Ryan can maintain the phone connection with Jessica (there’s no way for her to redial to him directly), if Ryan can save Jessica and her family before it’s too late, and if Sergeant Bob Mooney (William H. Macy) can figure out what the fuck is actually going on before he retires to run a beauty salon day spa with his wife.
There is something to be said for movies that rely on a particular piece of rapidly evolving technology - they date rather quickly. Watching a 2004 movie about phones in 2014… yeah… well. Maybe some aspects of this film were more believable back in 2004. I’m trying to remember back to 2004 and there’s some things they were having Nokia phones do in the film that I’m pretty sure they didn’t do. Maybe Nokia was top of the line then? You’re asking me to think back a decade and I didn’t even HAVE a mobile phone at that point!
I propose a drinking game for this movie - one sip everytime Kim Basinger’s character says shrieks something like ‘we’re going to die’… guaranteed to have you pass out by the end of the film. Oh lordy lordy lordy, I think she was trying to act… I’d like to believe she was trying to act. Actually, I could say that for most of the cast. Chris Evans and William H. Macy are the two better performances, but then again, I’ve never seen Macy turn in a bad performance. Chris does his best with a character that starts out as a bit of an airhead that is thrust into a position of great responsibility. He gets his shirt off in the beginning, so there’s that too.
I’ll be honest, I’ll never turn down an chance to see the Cevans with his shirt off.
Is this a good movie? Ehhhhh… It bills itself as a thriller and while there are a few ‘thrilling’ parts, but it’s so very silly in parts it’s more of a comedy. This is a good film to watch with friends and heckle it over a drink or two. I did end up finding this in a discount bin at Red Dot (a super discount chain) and I paid a whole $5 for it. Any more than that and I would have been a bit ripped off…
This was first posted at http://purrdencechris.tumblr.com/post/90253385597/cellular-2004