Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...
Let’s see what the increasingly-unpopular Burbank Bandits have to say:
Greetings again, folks.
The Burbank Bandits here with a look at New Line Cinema’s upcoming CELLULAR, which was screened last night in Pasadena. We hope that this review will be a little more polished than our previous two on account of we decided to get a good night’s sleep before hashing out our thoughts. You be the judge….
I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised with our critique in that – GASP! – we’ll actually have something nice to say about one of the movies we’ve seen the past few weeks. We’ll even sideline the spoilers.
HOWEVER, before we get down to Brass Tacks, we’d like to take a brief second and extend a heartfelt apology to a couple of our mates who, last night, took the heat of being the Bandits and were unceremoniously kicked out of line, barred from the screening. (Although it WAS kinda funny…at least to us. Oh, and our hats our off to you for not ratting us out, dudes. A frosty brew on us next time we see you.)
Tough break, too, especially since the movie was actually pretty damn good.
Written by Larry (PHONEBOOTH) Cohen, with the production script credited to Chris Morgan, CELLULAR is a great example of the so-called “high-concept” idea (culled from IMDB): Ryan Ackerman (Chris NOT ANOTHER TEEN MOVIE Evans) receives a call on his cellular phone from Jessica Martin (Kim “Still-Trying-To-Prove-I-Deserved-The-Oscar” Basinger), who says she's been kidnapped, and thinks she's going to be killed soon, along with her husband (Richard Burgi) and son (Adam Taylor Gordon) who the kidnappers (lead by the awesome Jason Statham, who, in our humble opinion, is still searching for his great breakout role) have gone after next. The catch? She doesn't know where she is... and his cell phone battery might go dead soon.
And, admirably, it succeeds on many levels. Plot contrivances keep Ryan as point-man throughout the pic, thwarting his attempts to involve the police at an early stage which, being the logical thing to do, is addressed and conveniently handled so as not to allow their presence to interfere for a while.
The numerous obstacles that are thrown Ryan’s way – hell, that’s really 95% of the picture when you get right down to it – and how he overcomes / deals with them may seem extreme for a laid back dude who’s suddenly risking life and limb for a person he doesn’t even know upon reflection. But you end up going with it in the moment.
Credit first-time helmer David R. Ellis and his editor for keeping the pace brisk enough so as not to allow the audiences’ mind to stop and think about logic. (For example: wouldn’t it have been better for Statham to rip the phone out of the wall instead of smashing it and leaving it’s gutted remains on the floor? Ah, dramatic license at it’s finest.)
That’s not to say the film’s perfect. Humor falls flat on more than a couple of occasions, and the “big twists” along the way are pretty “text book” in terms of Hollywood clichés. (In fact, it owes more than a little to NICK OF TIME in that regard.) Still, it’s an improvement over Cohen’s previous work, PHONE BOOTH which, despite Colin Farrell and Joel Schumacher giving it their all, felt like a great short film stretched to feature length.
Perfs in CELLULAR are good for this type of genre pic, especially by Evans who was given little to do in the deadly unfunny TEEN MOVIE. But honestly, can you ever really go wrong with William H. Macy in a role, as truncated as it felt here? And despite our “nuthin’ but love” attitude towards J.S. in LOCK, STOCK… and THE ITALIAN JOB, there was an overriding feeling that he just wasn’t right for this role, especially as the truth about his character is revealed.
With more than two months to go before its September release, there’s still work to be done. A few tweaks here n’ there and the flick will prove to be a satisfying enough entry in this field of movie and a decent B.O. performer for New Line, especially in what could otherwise be an unremarkable fall release schedule.
One last note to our Fall Guys: we’ll lay off the reviews for a while and see if we can’t get you back into a few more screenings in the near future.
Until we might meet again in the future, Harry, Moriarty, Quint, et al,
Seacrest Out!
The Burbank Bandits
Be careful, boys. I’ve been on that NRG shit list for about five years now. Once they’ve got you in their sights, they’ll get rabid about hunting you down. Thanks for the review, though.
"Moriarty" out.
