Do you know what’s quite satisfying? Digging out a forgotten action/thriller that turns out to be something of a little cracker. Usually these movies are nice and lively, helmed by an excitable director-for-hire and features a cast of recognizable veterans and soon-to-be-famous up and comers that, in hindsight actually gives us an impressively starry line up to fill out a fun, pulpy plot. Filling all of this criteria almost to the letter is 2004’s Cellular, a zippy, enjoyably preposterous thriller that got its original story from exploitation king Larry Cohen (The Stuff, Q – The Winged Serpent) and found it’s way to the screen courtesy of David R. Ellis, the man who gave us the Final Destination series’ most traumatising disaster to date – the highway pile-up from part 2.
Littered with an instantly familiar cast and as light on its feet as an electrified marmoset, Cellular may not have world-ending stakes, but if you’re dialed in, chances are you’re in for a world of fun.
Ryan is a young, carefree, surf loving dude who has recently been dumped by his girlfriend for the crime of being painfully irresponsible, but while he’s being distracted for now thanks to his new mobile phone, a fateful ring is about to change his life. You see, science teacher Jessica Martin had just seen her son, Ricky, off to school when masked men broke into her house, shot her housekeeper in cold blood and then spirited her off to an unknown location, ultimately locking her in the attic. However, despite the gruff leader of the group smashing the landlines located on the wall, Jessica’s science skills aren’t anything to be sneezed at and after she pieces most of the devise back together in order to call out to a completely random number.
Thar number ends up belonging to… well, I think you can just guess who the number belongs to, and before you know it, a stunned Ryan is trying to work out if the screaming woman on the other end of his line is for real or some elaborate joke. But after eventually deciding that this situation he’s found himself is legit, he immediately starts to try and get this woman some help but instantly finds that’s that’s far harder than you’d think. For a start, his movements are bound by the constraints of his phone – if he loses Jessica’s signal then she may never get him back, so certain places like tunnels our particular buildings will guarantee that their precious signal will crap out. Additionally, there’s the small matter of charging the damn phone (this is 2004, remember), but when the kidnappers start playing rougher to get whatever the hell it is they want, they start targeting to other members of Jessica’s family in order to get what they want.
But while Ryan commits all sorts of felonies in order to keep Jessica on the line, and a lowly police Sergeant stumbles upon some clues, all three of them can’t hope to forsee the stunning reason the kidnapping happened in the first place until it’s too late.
OK, if you were to stack up the cultural impact that Cellular had back during its initial release, it probably lay somewhere between the Queen Latifah/Jimmy Fallon remake of Taxi and that David Koepp thriller that saw Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a bicycle courier on the run (Premium Rush, in case you were scrabbling for the title). However, while history has suggested that Cellular was a somewhat more forgettable version of Phone Booth, a timely rewatch reveals it to be something of a little, undervalued firecracker that reaps a surprising amount of rewards for a standalone thriller. For a start, there’s something genuinely refreshing about the tone which is both cheerfully breezy and genuinely tense as we watch a panic stricken, Santa Monica youth pull various survival tactics out of his ass in order to try and keep a total stranger alive.
Breezy and tense is pretty much a perfect description of the late David R. Ellis’ style thanks to the pulp goof of Snakes On A Plane and the crash-tastic Final Destination 2, but with Cellular, there was a sense that he was really beginning to hit his stride thanks to a plot that’s almost Speed-like in its fidgety insistence of never standing still and a script that packed full of bright-eyed zingers and chaotic movement. OK, so some of it may play to the crowd at bit: you can tell that the constant mislabelling of Sergeant Mooney’s dream to open a spa is shamelessly building to one final quip after being repeatedly belittled as a beauty salon (“It’s a day spa, you fuck.”), and the repeated callbacks to Rick Hoffman’s shitbird lawyer all feel like weathered 90s action trademarks 101, but they’re fun, goddammit and they add to that rollercoaster ride that the filmmakers are obviously shooting for.
This may grate against those who gravitate to Larry Cohen for his more cynical style (his original script was substantially rewritten to be far more sunnier), but those who love fast paced action thrillers that deliver likable characters and plenty of instances of situational comedy where an average joe is threatened by life threatening circumstances, than the film doesn’t set many feet wrong despite being regularly preposterous. But even if large segments of the film tend to crumble if you were to point out weird behavior or lapses of logic (how fucking hard is it to hand a phone to a cop in LA), the film is wisely shooting for excitement and personality over a watertight plot. Helping that along is the supremely likable cast which contains a noticable influx of familiar faces.
For a start, it’s always nice to see Hollywood remembering that roles for older women really need to increase and even though Kim Basinger is essentially playing a damsel in distress (can’twin em’ all, I guess), at least she’s portraying one that’s smart and gutsy and knows how to rewire a phone. On the flip side, it’s fun to watch a pre-Captain America Chris Evans breathlessly playing the reluctant hero, while constantly freaking out about how he’s going to clear the next narrative hurdle which may involve sticking up a phone shop with a gun for a charger or just some good old grand theft auto. Also present and adding to his ever growing list of hangdog heroes is a mustached William H. Macy as the cop who has to figure all this shit out while helping his wife to choose the correct face mask for their spa and we even get Jason Statham in a rare villain role that may hamstring him with an American accent, but thankfully doesn’t give him questionable follicles (The One and Ghosts Of Mars, I’m looking at you).
Maybe not an overly earth-shattering example of 2000s thrills, but a lively script, energetic direction and a tuned-in cast all make sure that none of Cellular is – wait for it – phoned in. In fact, all the down to earth stakes and likable characters all mean that this is one neglected film that truly deserved a better – reception – than the one afforded it back in 2004. OK, I’m done with the phone jokes now, no need to get hung up…
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