It Was Only A Matter Of Time
First, Hollywood made us scared of phone booths, now it's cell phones. I suppose next we're gonna have to worry about our copiers and fax machines?
Anyway, this is probably not gonna be a too indepth review cause it's your standard "Typical average Joe becomes the hero to save the girl and fight the bad guys" movie, so I'll just give you a rundown of the movie.
Kim Basinger plays a chick named Jessica Martin, which proves my theory that any chick with the name Jessica is going to be hot. Just think of any girl you know named Jessica and I'm willing to bet she's hot. If you can prove me wrong, send me a picture of an ugly Jessica.
Anyway, Jessica is in her house one morning when these bad guys show up and kidnap her. They take her to some house and lock her in the attic. The main bad guy, Ethan, smashes the phone that's in the attic so she can't call anyone for help. But that doesn't stop Jessica: she's a science teacher! Well, ok she's a Biology teacher, but Biology is a science and I clump all Science's together. Anyway, she somehow pieces the phone back together and starts dialing numbers.
She gets: Ryan.
Ryan is having some minor problems up until he recieves Jessica's phone number. He's hanging out with his friend Chad on the beach (This is all filmed in L.A, lucky bastards) and he spots his ex-girlfriend Chole, played by Jessica Biel. HA! Another hot Jessica!! Told ya!
Chole tells Ryan that she'll get back with him if he hands out some flyers and picks up some T-Shirts for some band she's screwing-I mean-promoting. He says yes and is about to do this when he get's Jessica's call.
At first he dismisses the call but he decides to humor her and go to the police station. There, we meet Officer Mooney, played by William H. Macy. I am aware that there was a famous Officer Mooney in the cult classic "Killer Klowns From Outer Space", maybe this is a weird tribute to this, I dunno. Anyway, Ryan gives the phone to Mooney and he's about to take down Jessica's infomation when a gang war breaks out in the station. Mooney sends Ryan to another floor while he takes care of the gangs.
Ryan is in a stairwell when he hears the kidnappers himself and realizes how serious this is and that if he continues up the stairs, he'll lose the connection.
What follows is him running across L.A breaking a zillion laws trying to help this hot Jessica chick. She is confused cause they wanna know about her husband, who is a realtor and doesn't know why these guy's would be after him.
And Jessica has Ryan running all over the place, first to pick up her son Ricky Martin (Yes, Livin' La Vida Loca Ricky Martin is her son...just kidding, this Ricky Martin is 9 years old), but the bad guys get there first. Then she has him run to LAX to meet her husband, which involves him stealing an asshole lawyers (redudnancy?) car, before the bad guys do. But they get to him first. And it is here at LAX that Ryan founds out something extremely shocking:
The bad guys...are cops!!!
WHA?!?!?!?!?!
The cops ask Jessica's husband, Craig, where "it" is, not saying what "it" is. Craig says it's in a bank deposit box at their bank, which Jessica makes Ryan run to, to get there before the bad guys, blah blah blah...
But Ryan ACTUALLY does something and beats on the cops and steals the "it". It's at this point we find out what "it" is. Earlier that morning, before all this crap, Craig was videotaping a house and talking about it for something when he hears a commotion. Turns out this prime real estate is near a crack house and these cops are torturing and beating on these drug dealers. Then they decide to just kill them right then and there. But the cops find out that Craig was videotaping all this, which is what all of this has been about.
Meanwhile, one of kidnappers/cops, finds out Jessica is on the phone and goes to confront her. But her being a Biology teacher, she stabs him in some vein that causes a shitload of bleeding and kills him quickly. She runs out and tries to save Ricky Martin by shaking her bon-bon, but the cops quickly prevent this from happening.
Ryan calls Ethan and tells him "I got the tape, do as I say or Mr. Bill O'Reilly is gonna be masturbating to this tape" or words to that effect. They agree to meet him at the beach everyone was at at the beginning of this movie for two reasons:
A-Cause it's a public place and the cops won't kill people with 200,000 witnesses
And B-Gives his ex-girlfriend and best friend a chance to come by during all this and ruin things.
Mooney, meanwhile, is bothered by the whole kidnapping thing and decides to check out Jessica's place. He finds a chick pretending to be her, and when he goes around to the back, he finds the broken glass door, and suspects something's a-foot. He finds the Fake Jessica, who turns out to be one of the "dirty cops", and shoots her.
Mooney's friend and chief Tanner is also involved with this (GASP!!), but Mooney doesn't suspect anything.
Everyone ends up at the beach, Ethan tracks down Ryan cause Chole shows up (like I said) and ruins everything (Also like I said), and Ethan destroys the tape. When Chad comes in (like I said) and ruins everything (also like I said) Ryan makes a break for it.
Ethan finds Ryan hiding in some storage thingy and they fight until Mooney shows up, cause he figured out all these cops are actually the bad guys and they have Jessica and her family hostage. Mooney and Ethan chase each other, until Ryan decides to blow Ethan's cover by calling his cell and Mooney shoots him.
William H. Macy should've improv'd something here at this point by saying something like "It's for you!" or "I'm sorry, this call cannot be completed as dialed" or something. But anyway, yes we get the happy ending with Jessica all grateful and Ryan all disappointed that this hot chick is married. But he gets Jessica Biel so he shouldn't complain.
Oh, and Ryan uploaded the videon onto his cellphone, so they have all the proof they need. Ok, done.
So, yeah, it's a typical action flick with modern technology thrown in, and it wasn't too bad of a movie. Was sort of unbelieveable at first but it got better the more it went on. Just be on the look out for this summer's new blockbuster, about a guy who turns on his radio and can't turn it off or else his great-grandmother will be bought back to life to kill him.
Can't wait.
3 stars.
"Cellular" on IMDb.com:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0337921/