Connected

Starring: Louis Koo, Nick Cheung, Barbie Hsu, Ye Liu

Synopsis:

Grace Wong, an attractive, divorced mechanics engineer, is brutally kidnapped from her home and locked in an old shed in the middle of nowhere. She has no idea what her kidnappers want, but she manages to piece together the shattered components of a telephone and make a random call in a desperate plea for help. Her call is received by Bob, a down-on-his-luck debt collector who is on his way to the airport to say goodbye to his young son, who is going to live with his mother in Australia. When he realises that Grace’s plight is real, Bob is compelled to help. However, convincing the police isn’t easy, and Bob not only must try and keep up with the bad-guys, he has to keep his connection to Grace, at all costs...

Review:

The above synopsis might strike a chord of recognition among some of you, as Connected is an Official Remake of the 2004 film, Cellular, starring Kim Basinger, Jason Statham and Chris Evans. Director Benny Chan has taken the original script and given the whole thing his usual dose of Wallop to proceedings.

The main differences between the two films are the backgrounds given to the characters. In the original, Grace was a married schoolteacher, whilst the bad-guys were after something belonging to her husband. The character of Bob has the same commitment issues as his original version, except here he is a failed family man who has let his wife and son down at least one time too many, that even his son is resigned to disappointment.

Although a certain cell-phone company gets a lot of product placement, the hackneyed plot devices used in the original have been dropped, all except the moment Bob gets a low battery and needs to go get a car recharger. This lends to probably the funniest moment in the film, as Bob uses a gun for the first time in his life to scare a snooty shop assistant into serving him.

Louis Koo is something of a chameleon actor. Over the past year I’ve witnessed him as family-man cop (Overheard), cold-blooded assassin (Accident) and now as the put-upon everyman thrust into extraordinary circumstances, digging deep into himself to discover a tenacity and determination he never knew he was capable of.

Nick Cheung also scores high as Detective Fai, once a high-flier on the force, now relegated to traffic duty because of his temper leading to violent outbursts. It’s the same role played by William H Macy in the original, and the character goes through the same motions more or less. The difference is that Cheung’s version isn’t hen-pecked into submission by his wife and is given more room to display his detective skills.

Benny Chan is on something of a roll, with a number of blockbuster hits to his name, including my favourite action movie of the year, Invisible Target, and one of Jackie Chan’s best recent efforts, Rob B Hood. Here he turns the action up to 11, throwing Louis Koo into some outlandish action situations (check out the car-chase where he ends up on the wrong side of the road).

Verdict:Connected beats out the original by tightening the script and turning the action set-pieces up to 11. Recommended.

8 out of 10 (MikeOutWest)

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