Cellular (film)

Cellular
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	David R. Ellis
Screenplay by	Chris Morgan
Story by	Larry Cohen
Produced by	Dean Devlin Lauren Lloyd
Starring	Kim Basinger Chris Evans Jason Statham Eric Christian Olsen Noah Emmerich William H. Macy
Cinematography	Gary Capo
Edited by	Eric Sears
Music by	John Ottman
Production company	Electric Entertainment
Distributed by	New Line Cinema
Release date	September 10, 2004 (2004-09-10)
Running time	94 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$25 million[1]
Box office	$57.7 million[1]

Cellular is a 2004 American action thriller film directed by David R. Ellis. The film stars Chris Evans, Jason Statham, Kim Basinger and William H. Macy, with Noah Emmerich, Richard Burgi, Valerie Cruz and Jessica Biel. The screenplay was written by Chris Morgan, based on a story by Larry Cohen.^[2]

The film was released on September 10, 2004. It received mixed reviews from critics and grossed $57 million.

Plot[]

This article's plot summary may be too long or excessively detailed. Please by removing unnecessary details and making it more concise. (June 2021) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

Jessica Martin is a high school biology teacher who lives with her husband Craig, a realtor, and their son Ricky. One day, after taking Ricky to his bus stop for school, five intruders break into her house, slay her housekeeper, kidnap her, confine her in the attic of their safe house, and smash the landline telephone with a sledgehammer hanging on one of the beams in the attic to prevent her from contacting anyone. Jessica, however, manages to use the wires of the broken phone to contact a random number.

Meanwhile, a carefree young man named Ryan is hanging out at Santa Monica Pier with his friend Chad when he comes across his ex-girlfriend, Chloe, who had previously dumped Ryan for being too irresponsible and self-centered. Hoping to get back together with Chloe, Ryan offers to help with the fundraising concert being held at the pier by handing out fliers and picking up four boxes of t-shirts from Office Depot; Ryan has Chad hand out the fliers until he returns with the t-shirts. On his way, Ryan gets a call on his cellphone, a Nokia 6600, from Jessica who informs him of her kidnapping situation and how the phone is shattered.

Although Ryan takes it as a prank call, Jessica persuades him to go to the police station, where he reports to Sergeant Bob Mooney. When a fight between several police officers and apprehended gang members breaks out, Mooney is forced to intervene and tells Ryan to report the kidnapping to the detectives on the fourth floor. However, Ryan is unable to find anyone on the way up, and will lose the call due to poor cell service if he continues climbing the stairs. Ethan, the leader of the kidnappers, asks Jessica for the location of Craig, and when Jessica refuses to provide information Ethan wants, he leaves to get Ricky. Overhearing them, Ryan realizes that the kidnapping is real and gets to Ricky's school, only to see the boy kidnapped. He hijacks a security officer's car and gives chase, but loses the kidnappers. As his phone battery is running out, he takes the gun in the school’s security car and holds up a store to buy a charger.

Deciding to check on Ryan's kidnapping claim, Mooney visits Jessica's house. He meets Dana Bayback, the kidnappers' sole female accomplice, posing as Jessica, leading Mooney to believe the claim is a false alarm. With Ricky in tow, Ethan returns and asks Jessica about a place her husband Craig is hiding, "The Left Field". Jessica, fearing the kidnappers will kill her and her family once Craig is found, attacks Ethan, but is overpowered and confesses that it is a bar at the Los Angeles International Airport. Before Ethan departs, a woman playing loud music in her car pulls up next to Ryan, but Ryan quickly silences his phone before Ethan can get suspicious.

A cross-connection between phone lines causes Ryan to carjack a nearby lawyer's and rob him of his cellphone to maintain connection. At the airport, Ryan plants the gun on one of the kidnappers, triggering the alarm. When security intervenes, the kidnappers are revealed to be police officers for LAPD and they proceed to apprehend Craig. While trying out day spa products with his wife, Mooney sees a newsflash of Ryan holding up the store for the charger (and the carjacking of the lawyer and robbery of his cellphone) and calls Jessica's house and notices the voice on the answering machine is different from that of the woman he met (who has an accent) leaving him suspicious.

The kidnappers escort Craig to his safe deposit box at a bank to retrieve a bag, but Ryan intervenes, by smashing a pole across Dimitri’s face, intercepts the bag, and takes off with it, only to drop and break the lawyer's cellphone while being chased by Ethan. When Ryan opens Craig's bag, he sees Craig's video camera, and finds a disturbing video of where Craig unintentionally filmed LAPD Detectives Ethan, Mad Dog, Dimitri, Dana Bayback, Deason, and Mooney's friend Jack Tanner, robbing, torturing, and murdering two drug dealers in cold blood in an alley, exposing them all as dirty cops.

Ryan steals the lawyer's car again, this time from the impound lot where it was taken after it was confiscated by police at the airport, and retrieves his own cellphone he left in the seat. Mooney returns to the Martin residence to verify somethings, where he kills Bayback in self-defense when she shoots at him grazing him on the side of his neck. Then mooney’s friend, Tanner pulls up to the House after getting the notification of the shootout to make sure he was alright pretending to be a concerned friend. Back at the safe house, Mad Dog sees the landline is in use and is suspicious and learns Jessica has been trying to contact help and attempts to kill her, but Jessica purposely nicks his brachial artery, in the altercation causing him to bleed to death in seconds. Then Ethan gets notified from Tanner about Bayback’s death and the forensic team being at the Martin’s house processing it for evidence. Before Jessica and Ricky can escape, they are caught by Ethan's gang, but before they can be executed with Craig, Ryan contacts Ethan and makes a deal: the videotape in exchange for the Martin family at Santa Monica Pier.

At the pier, Ryan disguises himself and refuses to give them the camera until the Martins are freed, but is found by Mooney and Tanner when Chloe inadvertently exposes him. Tanner sends Mooney away with Dimitri for medical attention, abducts Ryan, and brings him to Ethan. Ethan crushes the videotape to pieces, and Tanner radios Deason to execute the Martins (although Deason decides to wait until they return to the safe house to execute them and avoid suspicion); however, Mooney overhears the transmission, overpowers Dimitri and handcuffs him before returning to the pier. Ryan escapes to a boathouse, following a distraction by Chad, where Tanner and Ethan chase after him. Ryan knocks out Tanner, but is overpowered by Ethan before Mooney shows up. After a brief altercation, Ryan notices Ethan has circled behind Mooney and calls Ethan's cell phone. The phone's ringtone exposes Ethan's position, and Mooney shoots him.

Jessica stuns Deason by strangling him with her handcuff chain in the van, then frees her husband and son; however, Deason recovers and attempts to kill them when Ryan intervenes and slams his head in the car door. While Ryan and Mooney are being treated by medics, Tanner is also exposed, because Ryan had copied the whole video recording onto his cellphone. Jessica finally meets Ryan, the man who risked his life to save her family, and Ryan humorously asks her to never call him again.

Cast[]

Production[]

Larry Cohen, screenwriter of the 2002 thriller film Phone Booth, conceived of Cellular while working for Sony Pictures.^[3] Cohen's original screenplay mimicked Phone Booth in its theme of a "narcissistically obsessed society" enamored with cell phones.^[4] Its story followed a 30- or 40-year-old man named Theo Novak who obtains a call from a woman named Lenore, who tells him that she and her husband have been abducted in a safehouse by a group of bank robbers. It is then revealed that Novak is an art thief who becomes wracked with guilt after unsuccessfully rescuing a friend from committing suicide in the past; he agrees to make a detour from a criminal undertaking and rescue Lenore. During the rescue Novak is unsuccessful, but later discovers a conspiracy involving Lenore and her accomplices over another crime they are involved with—ultimately, Novak gains the upper hand, killing Lenore and her accomplices and obtains their loot in the process, which leaves him therefore a wealthy man.^[4]

Sony Pictures' then Vice President Lauren Lloyd was drawn to Cohen's script and thought of pitching it to fellow executives, but was unsuccessful in doing so.^[3] She then left Sony to produce the project independently. Lloyd sent the script to her colleague producer Dean Devlin and pledged to develop it together.^[3] Aiming for a story straightforward and devoid of bitterness and cynicism present in Cohen's version, the pair hired screenwriter Chris Morgan.^[3][4] Morgan had been passionate about crafting "a story about how an everyday person can become heroic when faced with a certain set of trying circumstances", and he incorporated that in Cellular.^[3] In an attempt to segue the script's predominant action and thriller elements with situational comedy, as well as appeal to young audiences, Morgan took inspiration from the comical attributes of the fictional character Indiana Jones:

I'm a big fan of situational humor and I feel like comedy plays best when it's the right thing at the right time and not just somebody trying to make a joke. For example, in Raiders of the Lost Ark when Indiana Jones is faced with fighting the swordsman and he just pulls out a gun and shoots him. That’s not really a joke, but it got a huge laugh. That's the kind of humor we tried to work.^[3]

Music[]

Cellular: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
Soundtrack album by John Ottman
Released	October 5, 2004
Genre	Electronic, Stage & Screen
Length	56:52
Label	La-La Land Records LLLCD 1025
John Ottman chronology
Gothika (2003) Cellular: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (2004) Lonely Place (2004)

The soundtrack for the movie was composed by John Ottman and released on October 5, 2004 via La-La Land Records label.^[5][6]

Track listing[]

No.	Title	Length
1.	"Opening / Abduction"	3:09
2.	"Going Shopping"	3:35
3.	"Making A Connection"	2:20
4.	"The Bait"	3:08
5.	"Mooney's Curious"	1:22
6.	"Freeing Ricky"	4:05
7.	"School's Out"	4:23
8.	"We're Going To Die"	2:11
9.	"LAX"	4:21
10.	"Epiphany / The Bank"	4:04
11.	"The Pier"	4:10
12.	"Lost Connection / Dirty Cops"	4:44
13.	"Hot Porsche / Simply Biology"	3:37
14.	"Police Station"	4:01
15.	"Fake Out"	2:12
16.	"Shoot Out"	5:42

Release[]

Home media[]

Cellular was released on VHS and DVD on January 18, 2005. The film was later released on Blu-ray on July 17, 2012 by New Line Home Entertainment.

Reception[]

Box office[]

Cellular grossed $32 million in the U.S. and Canada and $25.7 million in international markets, for a total of $57.7 million worldwide.

Critical response[]

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 55% of 149 surveyed critics gave the film a positive review; the average rating is 5.76/10. The site's critics consensus reads: "Though it's gimmicky and occasionally feels like a high-end cell phone ad, Cellular is also an energetic and twisty thriller."^[7] Metacritic, another review aggregator, gave the film a score of 60 out of 100 based on 29 critics, indicating "mixed or averaged reviews".^[8] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.^[9]

Entertainment Weekly called the film "pure chase-thriller excitement",^[10] and Claudia Puig of USA Today called it a "well-paced action film in the vein of Speed".^[11] Roger Ebert rated it three and half stars and called it "one of the year's best thrillers".^[2]

Kim Basinger was nominated for Best Supporting Actress at the 31st Saturn Awards.

Other media[]

Novelization[]

A novelization of the film was written by Pat Cadigan and released in October 2004 by Black Flame.

Remakes[]

The 2007 Bollywood film Speed is an adaption of Cellular directed by Vikram Bhatt. The film stars Zayed Khan, Sanjay Suri, Urmila Matondkar, Aftab Shivdasani and Aashish Chaudhary.

The 2007 Malayalam movie Hello draws the plot of kidnap and phone call to a random number from Cellular.

In 2008, a Hong Kong remake of the film entitled Connected was co-written, produced and directed by Benny Chan. The film stars Louis Koo, Barbie Shu, Nick Cheung and Liu Ye.

In 2009, a Tollywood remake of the film entitled Risk was directed by Riingo Banerjee. The film stars Hiran Chatterjee, Rajesh Sharma, Rituparna Sengupta, Priyanka Sarkar and Subhasish Mukhopadhyay.

References[]

External links[]

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Cellular (film)

• Official website at the Wayback Machine (archived November 7, 2007)
• Cellular at IMDb
• Cellular title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• Cellular at Box Office Mojo
• Cellular at AllMovie
• Cellular at the TCM Movie Database
• Cellular at the American Film Institute Catalog