Cellular

Herald rating: * * *

There's a little bit of the Hitchcocks about this thriller, but we'll get to that later because we can't give it away at the beginning.

Jessica (Kim Basinger) and Ryan (Chris Evans) are ordinary people having typical days that will turn out to be very, very bad ones.

She's a high school science teacher kidnapped in her home. The gang, led by Greer (Jason Statham) want something from her husband - something to do with his job. They also plan to lift her son, Ricky (Adam Taylor Gordon), from school.

One of the gang smashes the phone, but Jessica is a science teacher and can hot-wire it to make one call. Dumb-but-nice twentysomething Ryan answers. He does not believe the terrified woman's story; even puts her on hold. She convinces him to give his phone to a cop and we're into that old Hitchcock set-up where dumb-but-nice guy is caught up in a drama.

When he walks into a police station and hands the phone to Mooney (William H. Macy), he's sent off to the homicide squad. But that call will come back to haunt Mooney. He and Ryan will take their own spectacularly different routes to the inevitable conclusion.

Fast-paced, lightweight, and not a little bit silly, it's one of those forgettable flicks with which to while away a winter evening.

The DVD's Dialling Up feature reveals that screenwriter Larry Cohen pitched the movie to Hitchcock in the 60s, building his original story around a phone booth because the cellphone hadn't been invented. Otherwise, a couple of slim features, five deleted scenes, an alternate opening and extended ending.

* Dvd, rental video out now