Final Call - If he hangs up, she has to die

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Movie
German title Final Call - If he hangs up, she has to die
Original title Cellular
Cellular.svg
Country of production USA , Germany
original language English
Publishing year 2004
length 94 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
JMK 12
Rod
Director David R. Ellis
script Larry Cohen
Chris Morgan
production Dean Devlin
Lauren Lloyd
music Garrett Dutton
John Ottman
camera Gary Capo
cut Eric A. Sears
occupation

Final Call is an action film with thriller elements of David R. Ellis from the year 2004 . The scripts for this and the film Don't hang up! , which is based on the same basic constellation, provided Larry Cohen and Chris Morgan .

action

Biology and physical education teacher Jessica Martin, who lives in Brentwood , Los Angeles , is kidnapped by a group of men , taken to a house in the country and locked in the attic there. Although one of the kidnappers smashes the phone there, she succeeds in putting the parts back together in such a way that dialing impulses are sent from him and the microphone and loudspeaker can also be used. By chance she reaches the unknown boy Ryan, who is currently driving his car, on his mobile phone.

Ryan initially believes it is a joke, but when he hears the kidnappers harassing Jessica, he tries to help her. However, he cannot find out her whereabouts because she does not know him herself. She just gives him her name and address. Always careful not to get into a dead zone in order to maintain the unstable connection, he drives to the police. Police officer Mooney records Jessica's name and address, but cannot go into the case at first, as he is distracted by a fight that breaks out in the police building. Later he drives to the address, a woman opens the door and explains to him that it is obviously a joke because she is Jessica. For Mooney this explanation suffices; but in the next shot it becomes clear to the audience that the woman is one of the kidnappers.

Jessica begs Ryan to drive to her son Ricky's school because he too should be kidnapped. Ryan can't prevent Ricky from getting into the mother's car, which is where the kidnappers are. They bring Ricky to the house where Jessica is being held. Using a school security car, Ryan takes up chase, getting caught in traffic chaos. He is not noticed by the kidnappers, but loses sight of them in the heavy traffic. When he notices that his cell phone is running low, he tries to buy a charger from a phone shop. When someone tells him to stand in line, he goes back to the guard car. He discovers a pistol in the glove compartment. He uses her to force the handover of a charger in the shop, but also pays for it.

Then he makes his way to the airport after Jessica told him that the perpetrators from there also want to kidnap her husband Craig. When he was driving next to a blue Porsche 911 Cabriolet in heavy traffic a little later , he heard that the driver was obviously talking to Jessica on his cell phone, apparently the impulse from the makeshift phone in the attic had also reached his cell phone. Ryan blocks the Porsche with his car and asks the driver to let him on the cell phone. But the latter does not feel compelled to comply. At that moment, when a truck wrecks the car from the school security service that Ryan had stolen, he forces the Porsche driver to get out and drives the car to the airport.

There, Ryan tries to get Jessica's husband to safety, but accidentally contacts the wrong man. He has to watch the real Craig being kidnapped by the kidnappers - who identify themselves as police officers there. Craig is taken to his wife in the attic. He seems to know what the kidnappers want because he tells them that the object they are looking for is in a safe deposit box. While Craig is supposed to lead them there, Jessica can continue the conversation with Ryan on the Porsche driver's cell phone and describe the current situation to him. At the bank, Ryan succeeds in snatching the bag that Craig has just pulled out of his locker. On the run through the bank building, Ryan loses his cell phone and the connection to Jessica is lost.

On the run from the kidnappers, Ryan sees that the stolen Porsche is being towed away. Although he cannot read the name of the towing company, he does memorize its logo. When he sees a tow truck with the same logo a little later, he takes a taxi in pursuit. While driving, he notices that there is a camcorder in the bag from the bank locker . He sees on a video how police officers shoot two drug dealers while handing over money and take the bags with the money. The owner of the Porsche has meanwhile arrived in the parking lot for the towed cars. But before he can take possession of his car again, Ryan arrives there and steals the Porsche a second time. He can contact Jessica again via the Porsche driver's cell phone.

Jessica has meanwhile found a wallpaper knife with a targeted cut in the armpit artery, the deadly effect of which she knows as a biology teacher, she manages to get rid of her guardian among the kidnappers. She escapes from the house and frees her son from the shed in which he is being held by pulling in the door with her car. But when she tries to flee, she is stopped by the men who threaten to shoot her husband in front of her eyes. At that moment, a call on Craig's cell phone reaches the leader of the criminals: Ryan offers to hand over the incriminating video to him if he releases Jessica and her family. They set up a meeting at the Santa Monica Pier . But Ryan misjudges the situation and falls into the hands of the gang, whose leader immediately destroys the videotape.

Meanwhile, police officer Mooney found out about Ryan through the TV news. The station first interviewed employees of the telephone shop who said that a man with a pistol only wanted a charger and paid for it on top of that, then the Porsche driver who reported that he had an obviously kidnapped woman on the phone. Mooney, getting suspicious, drives to Jessica's house. There, in self-defense, he shoots the woman (with an accent) who opened the door for him on his first visit, knowing full well that the real Jessica doesn't have a foreign accent. As she dies, she tells him she is a police officer. He informs his superior about it and drives to the pier, where he meets the colleagues who have since arrived.

Mooney overhears a radio conversation among the police officers and understands that these corrupt colleagues are the wanted criminals. He can overwhelm one of them and also neutralize the other members of the gang who tried to shoot Ryan. He managed to escape at the last moment, jumping from the pier into the sea. It turns out that the leader of the gang was Mooney's immediate superior, whom he had previously unsuspectingly told about the suspicions against his colleagues.

In the end, the kidnapped couple, who are being held in a nearby car with theirs, manage to overcome the other kidnappers and regain their freedom together with Ryan. Although the perpetrators succeeded in destroying the video from the camcorder, the incriminating footage remains because Ryan had previously recorded it with the camera on his cell phone.

Reviews

“On the one hand, 'Final Call' is staged so tightly that the viewer doesn't really have much time to think. Only when he has finished the film and looks back on everything does he realize that everything has actually already been seen in a similar form. The second plus point is the credible cast. "

- filmstarts.de

“In Cohen's suggestive diction, the telephone is a medium of compulsion to act in a morally impeccable manner, and in FINAL CALL, too, the appeal character of the cry for help carries the threatening undertone that cannot be postponed. Although the hero is free to choose, he still looks like remote-controlled. In a clever dialectic, the ethical imperative and the lustful irrationality of the genre are combined into a beautiful film. "

- film service 03/2005

Awards

  • Nomination for the Saturn Award 2005 for Kim Basinger
  • The German Film and Media Evaluation FBW in Wiesbaden awarded the film the title valuable.

Background and miscellaneous

  • Larry Cohen wrote the script for Final Call while trying to do the script Don't Hang Up! for sale. The new film was supposed to be the counterpart to the 2002 thriller, in which the main actor was trapped in a phone booth the whole time while Ryan was free to move around.
  • Producer Dean Devlin, who was supposed to make his directorial debut with this film, has a cameo as a taxi driver.
  • The tattoo on Ryan's right arm is the Japanese character for loyalty and honor, which distinguishes the ordinary boy as a hero.
  • The cell phone that Chris Evans was using did not work. He heard Kim Basinger's text through a button in his ear.
  • A remix of the song Sinnerman by singer and pianist Nina Simone was used as the soundtrack .
  • There are several references to the New Line Cinema production company :
  • In 2008 the remake Connected was created in China / Hong Kong under the direction of Benny Chan .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Clearance Certificate for Final Call - If he hangs up, she has to die . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , January 2005 (PDF; test number: 101 215 K).
  2. ↑ Age rating for Final Call - If he hangs up, she has to die . Youth Media Commission .
  3. ^ Criticism at filmstarts.de
  4. ↑ film-dienst 03/2005 ( Memento of the original from October 1, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.film-zeit.de

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