MovieChat Forums > Cellular (2004) Discussion > I wonder how much in hindsight, Chris Ev...

I wonder how much in hindsight, Chris Evans should be embarrassed by this movie?


I thought about this after listening to the How Did this Get Made podcast on Cellular:
https://screenrant.com/the-avengers-humiliating-bad-roles-before-famous/

Cellular stars Kim Basinger as a high-school biology teacher who is held hostage in her home by dirty LAPD cops who need to recover evidence of their misdeeds.

She manages to hotwire a broken phone in her attic and reach a random cell number belonging to frat boy Ryan, played by Chris Evans, who decides to help the desperate woman on the line.

What follows can only be described as “Stupid Hitchcock”: it is a suspense/thriller movie revolving around one object or rule that generates suspense. However, that object and rule are very stupid-- Ryan cannot let his phone run out of battery, because then he would lose all contact with Kim Basinger and she has no way of reaching him again if he does.

This leads to Ryan robbing a phone store at gunpoint for a charger, avoiding a tunnel because he would lose reception, etc. It’s goofy fun, but it’s an incredibly silly role for Chris Evans, though he tries his best to lend gravitas and suspense.


https://web.archive.org/web/20190203135335/https://screenrant.com/the-avengers-humiliating-bad-roles-before-famous/

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Yes, I remember back there in 2004, watching the trailer, The part where he demands a charger, completely ridiculous

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It's funny that the initial story for this movie also came from the same guy who came up with the story for Phone Booth:
https://www.quora.com/What%E2%80%99s-a-suspense-thriller-movie-that-revolves-around-one-really-stupid-object-or-rule-that-is-meant-to-generate-suspense/answer/Mark-L-Levinson

Ostensibly, the rule isn’t so terrible by cinematic standards; it’s imposed by the crazed bad guy, and we accept the premise that a crazed bad guy gets a chance to drive the plot by imposing an arbitrary rule. But then at a certain point he revises the rule. For me, that kills the movie. In real life, of course, you can’t count on a crazed bad guy to stick to his own rules and keep his promises as the time passes, but when the discipline of the plot depends on the self-discipline of the bad guy, and you abandon that self-discipline so that the bad guy becomes unpredictable, you no longer have a plot at all as far as I’m concerned.

http://forum.earwolf.com/topic/59133-episode-205-cellular-w-ike-barinholtz-erin-gibson/?do=findComment&comment=292998

https://www.latimes.com/socal/glendale-news-press/news/tn-gnp-xpm-2004-09-10-lacressentaonline_applause06-story.html

http://legacy.aintitcool.com/node/16574p

https://misantropey.com/2015/04/28/larry-cohen-collection-cellular/

http://www.screenwritersutopia.com/article/d172f416

https://www.filmfreakcentral.net/ffc/2013/01/cellular.html

http://splicedwire.com/04reviews/cellular.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/10/movies/teacher-kidnapped-or-can-you-hear-me-now.html

https://products.kitsapsun.com/archive/2004/09-10/488630__cellular__should_be_turned_off.html

https://www.metacritic.com/movie/cellular

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If I were him, I wouldn't be embarrassed. He did a good job and it was a fun movie.

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If I were him I wouldn't be embarrassed at all. It was one of his first leading roles and probably helped to jumpstart his career.

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