Cellular

Suspenseful
By Joe De Matteo

Super

             Cellular is one of those films that pick you up and carry you off.  You care about the main character, Jessica Martin (Kim Basinger) a science teacher who has been kidnapped and locked in an attic.  She believes her kidnappers will kill her, and she is sure they will kidnap her son and kill him, as well.

            Motivated by fear for her own and her son’s safety, this science teacher is able to reassemble a smashed telephone, just enough to make a random call.  Now she has to convince a young man to help her.  Imagine getting a call out of the blue from a total stranger who is asking you to go to the police and get them to help her.  Right!

            I don’t want to overdo this, but the suspense level was reminiscent of a Hitchcock thriller.  Who would believe that a beautiful Hollywood actress like Kim Basinger could believably play a schoolteacher locked in an attic?   Well, she does, and she does it so well that you’ll be so involved in the story, you’ll not think about her as Kim Basinger at all. 

            William H. Macy does his usual great job as the policeman, who at first brushes off Ryan (Chris Evens).  Chris Evans, as well as everyone else in the film does a wonderful job. 

            As an aside, Larry Cohen who gets the writing credit for Cellular, also worked on Phone Booth, the 2002 telephone booth thriller with Colin Farrell, Kiefer Southerland and Forrest Whitaker, which also evolved around a long telephone call. 

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