Just Enough Signal (Cellular (DVD))

Member Name: JayHall1991

Product:	Cellular (DVD)
Date:	10/07/08 (54 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Clever, Exciting, Good Cast

Disadvantages: Huge Leaps In Logic, Highly Implausible, Kim Basinger

Ryan is desperate to win his old girlfriend back; so desperate that he is willing to run around town picking up t-shirts and flyers for her new campaign to stop pollution on the beach where they live. Whilst driving to the depot he gets a random phone call from a hysterical woman who claims to have been kidnapped by a group of thugs. She frantically explains to him that her only form of communication is this call as she is wiring a broken phone which cannot make any other connection. He is too busy and sceptical to believe her until he overhears her being brutally attacked on the other end of his mobile. So begins a cat and mouse game of fights and intrigue as Ryan desperately tries to outwit the thugs and save the suburban housewife. But is all as it seems?

Sometimes it is necessary to switch off your brain, leave your wits at the door and lounge on the sofa with nothing in the world to challenge your brain cells. For these occasions there is nothing better than a trashy Hollywood action movie (or one of the home shopping channels, but that can get expensive!) So it was with this need that I sat down to watch Cellular; a flashy, action packed, hyper unrealistic techno thriller and I have to say it fulfilled the job quite nicely. It's all pretty routine cat and mouse stuff but it's directed with zest , filled with energy and helped along by some accomplished performances and a few well crafted twists. The pacing is fast enough to stop you from examining the countless plot holes and it's injected with a huge amount of fun. Granted when it tries to be serious the implausibility's start to surface and some plot points seem to come from nowhere (with more than a few leaps in logic) - but for a big budgeted, little brained piece of movie fluff it is very solid, extremely entertaining and just clever enough to warrant crashing out in front of the television.

Indeed the most surprising thing about Cellular is just how entertaining it is - what is essentially a one trick pony (with little deviation from the opening premise)keeps you very gripped to the end and the action scenes are a genuine buzz thanks to nifty pacing and great stunt work. There is never a moment to get bored and the stakes are high enough, and the characterisation good enough, to create genuine tension throughout. A lot happens, yet the director manages to stop the thing feeling cluttered with a very streamlined running time and pace and the script, rather surprisingly, has some good moments of wit and imagination. It all crescendos to a satisfyingly frantic finale which bookends the film with at least a little bit of style and the thing is nicely acted by all involved (except maybe Kim Basinger, but we'll get to that later). It has enough smarts to pull the dumb bits through and it does itself a big favour in throwing away all reality or logic; the fact that it leaps into fantasy means that the screenplay can go anywhere it wants and definitely does, with car hijacking, gun battles, fist fights and techno babble galore. It also has its moments of Hitchcockian suspense which offer a nice change of pace every now and then and serve as a pretty successful comparison to the more straight forward crash-and-burn action.

However, all is not perfect with Cellular - there are many leaps in logic which are just too great to let slide by (and they do, eventually, detract from the overall enjoyment of the piece), there are a few completely redundant sub-plots, minor characters change identities without any real explanations and Kim Basinger's character is too annoying to truly care about. Plus, I suppose inevitably thanks to the films premise, the film starts to feel like a really extended mobile phone commercial - with countless close-ups of Ryan's headset and chunks of dialogue dedicated to it. Whilst the ending is enjoyable enough it loses steam after a while and the main bad-guy, who is quite a good character throughout, sort of pales into the background as the closing credits come nearer. William H. Macy is stuck with a pretty redundant character who has a truly bizarre back-story which involves him opening a day-spa and is given almost superhuman fighting powers (seeing William H. Macy fighting is pretty hilarious though) and there are moments when the screenplay pushes the realms of reality just a little too far.

Chris Evans proves to be a fairly likeable action star and he adds a lot of humour to the proceedings, showing at least some comedic skill. He isn't really required to do that much but he makes the most of his character with confidence and energy - he seems comfortable in front of the camera and is obviously capable of the action sequences. Apart from the bizarre shirtless scenes he does nothing offensively bad and brings realism to the role which is much, much needed. Kim Basinger on the other hand is pretty horrendous as the hostage housewife, I don't really know what she was trying to achieve with this performance, but I thinks it's fairly safe to say that she failed. She seems very self conscious throughout and her shrieky, irritating portrayal succeeds only in being annoying. She switches from hysterical to icy in mere seconds making her plight extremely unbelievable and she doesn't toe the line between frail and steely quite right making her seem almost Dr. Jackal and Hyde esque. Jason Statham does his usual hard-man thing, but is a genuinely threatening force in the pic, perfectly embodying the ruthless attacker with a roughness and energy that is very entertaining.

Cellular is surprisingly well directed, David. R Ellis keeps the thrills coming without letting the film go completely off the rails and his past experience with stunt work serves him very well in the brilliantly crafted car chases and fight sequences. He keeps things really zippy with a refreshingly short running time and allows the twists to come thick and fast without major melodrama and without signposting them from the beginning. He shows a lack of skill when trying to create true tension, relying on tried and tested sound effects and camera angles without truly ramping up the edge-of-your-seat suspense but he brings a brutality and vibrancy to the final sequences which really make them stand out. It's not violent enough to be shocking but there is a physicality supplied by all involved that keeps you hooked and there are some really nice uses of camera angles and overhead shots that keep the audience on their toes. There is also a nice sense of claustrophobia supplied during a lot of the hostage scenes but unfortunately the more open finale feels swamped with messy visuals and the constant zooming from one action sequence to another feels disorientating and gimmicky.

Cellular is an undoubtedly schlocky but entertaining bit of Hollywood fluff; filled with plot hole and excitement - it treads the line between absurd and thrilling very well and is helped by some great action/fight scenes. Kind of The Net for a new generation it revves along nicely to a neat and exciting finale and is filled with interesting twists and turns. Definitely worthy of a Saturday night rental, but not really a repeat viewer.

Summary: A Schlocky But Entertaining Farce