Cellular

Jessica, a kidnapped biology teacher, touches together the wires of a smashed phone in an attic and reaches a random number. On the other end is Ryan, hanging around Santa Monica pier. The entire film is about not dropping that call. Larry Cohen wrote the story, and got the idea while working on Phone Booth. His first version was darker, with an art thief named Theo Novak and a theme of guilt and compromise. Chris Morgan rewrote it into a story about how an ordinary person becomes heroic under pressure, adding humour along the way. Chris Evans plays Ryan and Kim Basinger plays Jessica, with Jason Statham as Detective Ethan Greer and William H. Macy as Sergeant Mooney. David R. Ellis directed on a 25 million dollar budget. Rotten Tomatoes sits at 56 percent, though Roger Ebert gave it three and a half stars and called it one of the year's best thrillers. It grossed 57.7 million dollars worldwide and was remade in both Hindi and Malayalam in 2007. Who it is for: viewers who like short, fast thrillers built on a single idea. Who it is not for: anyone unforgiving about logic. Battery life and signal are the film's weakest point and the script leans on them more than once.