This lightweight action-thriller from child actor turned stuntman turned director David R. Ellis piles one implausibility upon another until it becomes a nearly impossible burden for audiences to bear. That, coupled with the many deep plot holes around which Ellis and screenwriter Chris Morgan expect us to navigate, makes for an experience that is as exasperating as trying to maintain a cell phone signal in the network-saturated Los Angeles basin. That’s just what young surfer-dude Ryan (Chris Evans of “The Perfect Score”) manages to do, however, after he is randomly contacted by a frantic stranger named Jessica (Kim Basinger) who claims she’s been kidnapped by a group of nasty thugs.
Conveniently left alone by her captors in an attic that just happens to have a phone in it — albeit a shattered one — Jessica, a high school biology teacher, applies her scientific know-how and miraculously manages to place a call by touching together some wires. Knowing that she might not be fortunate enough to repeat that dubious feat — though you get the feeling that, in a pinch, Morgan wouldn’t have hesitated to add a “star-69” twist — Jessica tearfully implores her would-be savior not to hang up. Once Ryan’s convinced she’s for real, he races blindly and full throttle through the busy streets of LA in an effort to save the mystery woman and her family. All the while chatting up Jessica, as the threat of a dropped call and certain death hangs over them.
Though Basinger and Evans both fully commit to their characters and the flimsy premise that brings them together, “Cellular” falters because it requires audiences to not only suspend disbelief, but completely expel it. Also wasted are solid supporting turns from Jason Statham as the baddest bad guy, and William H. Macy as a retiring cop suddenly forced into action after a career spent behind a desk. And speaking of action, there’s plenty of it, mostly involving fast-moving vehicles on crowded roadways. (Rated PG-13 for violence, terror situations, language and some sexual references. Running time: 94 minutes)
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on September 10, 2004. Read the original PDF.