Cellular
Year of release : 2004
Run time : 1h34m
Genre : Thriller / Action
Cast : Kim Basinger, Chris Evans, Jason Statham, William H. Macy, Jessica Biel
After taking her son to the school bus down the street, 3 armed men enter Jessica’s house. They k1ll the maid for going for the alarm, and take Jessica with them.
They lock her in the attic, and smash the phone land line.
After trying to open the door and windows, Jessica hears the smashed phone beeping, and tries to dial any number.
Ryan is talking to his friend on the Santa Monica Pier, and sees his ex girlfriend, Chloe. He is trying to get her back, but Chloe says she’s done with him, for he’s irresponsible, self centered and childlish. As she’s saying these things, he’s recording her with his phone, proving her point. He is asking her to give him something to do to prove to her he is worth it. So she does. And he gives the tasks to his friend.
While driving, Ryan’s phone rings, and Jessica is on the line. She is asking him not to hang up, and to go to the police for her, to tell them about her situation. Ryan doesn’t believe her, but she manages to convince him to go to the police.
Sergeant Bob Mooney fights on the phone with someone who sent him something else in the mail. He is retiring, as he was in the force for 27 years, and opens a day spa with his wife.
Ryan approaches him, and although, at first Mooney doesn’t believe him, he does take his phone, talking to Jessica. A fight breaks out between the arrested cr1minals, and his attention goes to that, giving the phone back to Ryan, telling him to go to Homicide on the 4th floor.
While Ryan does so, one of the kidnappers comes in, roughing Jessica up, asking her about “where did he put it?” and about her husband’s whereabouts. Because she has no idea what she’s talking about, he tells her he’s going after her son.
Ryan’s cell’s signal gets weaker, and Jessica tells him he can’t climb higher, because if the connection dies, she could di3 too. She asks him to go to her son’s school to pick him up before the kidnappers find him.
Ryan speeds up on the way to the school, but once he gets there, as no one wants to help him, he sees him getting in the kidnappers’ car (which is Jessica’s car).
Ryan takes the school security’s car, and speeds on the road, trying to catch up with the kidnappers, but he takes the wrong turn. His phone is dying, and going to the cellular store, he gets a new charger at gun point (finding a gun in the school security car), as he was repeatedly told to get in the line of 72 people!
As Mooney leaves the police station, he remembers Jessica’s situation, and looks her up. He goes to her place, and a brunette woman with an accent answers, pretending to be her.
The kidnappers show Jessica they brought her son, and she should tell them what they want to know, or they’ll k1ll him. In this case, they ask her about a message her husband left her on the phone. She tells them the note they’re talking about refers to a bar at LAX.
Ryan heard all that, and Jessica tells him she and her son saw their faces, and they’re not gonna survive this. She is asking him to go to LAX to find her husband before the kidnappers do.
As he’s charging his phone in the car, Ryan’s signal gets mixed with the one of a lawyer talking in his car.
Ryan stops in front of him, threatens the man to give him his phone, and seeing his car was hit by another, he also takes his car.
At the LAX, trying to get rid of the kidnappers, Ryan puts his gun in the box with one of the kidnappers’ items, and he finds out they are cops.
The movie was action packed, with Ryan driving fast from one place to the other, in the nick of time, trying to help Jessica.
Mooney gets involved, as he sees a news report on tv about the young man matching the description of the one who talked to him about the kidnapped Jessica, getting a charger and stealing cars at gun point, and calls Jessica’s home number. He realizes the woman he met had an accent, and goes back to investigate.
Jessica and her son are collateral damage, as the corrupted cops try to get to her husband who saw them do something he shouldn’t.
The acting was good, especially from Chris Evans and Kim Basinger- who had to cry a lot and act scared, and who was amazing.
The soundtrack was good.
I don’t know if it had visual effects, but if it did, they were good.
The movie has a metascore of 60 against a 6.6 user score on Metacritic, with Rotten Tomatoes ratings from both the critics and the audience in the 50%, and a 6.5 rating on IMDB .
Cinema Score audiences graded the movie a B+.
The movie grossed 57.7 million dollars at the box office, against a budget of 25 million dollars.
The movie has 3 remakes ,the 2007 Malayan movie “Hello”, the 2007 Bollywood movie Speed, and the 2008 Hong Kong movie Connected, and a 2004 novel inspired by it, written by Pat Cardigan.
You can find the full movie for free on platforms like YouTube and Ok.Ru.
Rating : Worth a watch!