Movie review
Cell phony
Can you hear me now? The plot of the ridiculous thriller Cellular defies all logic.
By STEVE PERSALL, Times Film Critic
Published September 10, 2004
Cellular doesn't expect viewers to merely suspend disbelief. This movie wants it completely expelled from your life, with no chance of returning. Everything that happens in David R. Ellis' film is a declaration of what will happen next, and if it doesn't seem plausible, it's just Cellular calling attention to itself as a plot gone wild.
How does Ellis plan to fool thee? Let me count the ways:
No. 1: Kim Basinger is playing a science teacher. Enough said.
No. 2: The teacher, Jessica Martin, is capable of rewiring a telephone smashed by a sledgehammer to call for help when thugs invade her home. The telephone can maintain a connection with the first random number she calls, and it isn't something simple such as, say, 911.
No. 3: The recipient of the call, Ryan (Chris Evans), is the last person anyone would trust with their lives and therefore the prime choice for a movie without logic. Ryan is a buff beach boy whom even his friends consider childish and irresponsible. But he has photogenic abs.
No. 4: Ryan takes off on a thoughtful series of crimes to save Jessica and her husband and son, whom the thugs are threatening. In the course of an hour, he trespasses at a private school, steals a security vehicle, causes a massive freeway crash, demolishes a construction site, robs a cellular phone store at gunpoint for a battery charger (but pays for it), carries that gun into Los Angeles International Airport, and carjacks a sports car from an uppity lawyer (so it seems okay). As usual when movies demand it, law enforcement officers are nowhere in sight and are clueless when they are around.
No. 5: The lone cop Ryan contacts about Jessica's situation is, no surprise, only days from retirement. Officer Mooney (William H. Macy, in his best odd-cop impersonation) plans to open a day spa, allowing comic relief while discussing loofahs and wearing plankton on his face. Oh yes, and Mooney hasn't fired his gun in 27 years on the force, so you know he'll be a crack shot when the time is right.
At the risk of running out of fingers and toes, we'll stop counting. But we must mention the incredible reason why thugs are threatening the Martins, and the extent of their conspiracy that circles back, conveniently enough, to Mooney. All Ellis needed was a way to make the lead thug (Jason Statham) Ryan's uncle because, you know, everyone in the nation's second-most-populated city knows one another.
Nothing about Cellular is extraordinary except its blatant disregard for logic. This is a movie that could end at any time, if only one person did what would be expected under their circumstances. That's especially true of the McGuffin propelling the plot, the reason why all this mayhem is happening. There isn't a single element of truth from which to suspend our disbelief. Anymore fantasy in this movie and it would have been animated.
Cellular
Grade: D
Director: David R. Ellis
Cast: Kim Basinger, Chris Evans, William H. Macy, Jason Statham, Jessica Biel
Screenplay: Chris Morgan
Rating: PG-13; violence, intense peril, profanity
Running time: 94 min.
[Last modified September 10, 2004, 01:14:19]
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Movie reviewCell phony
