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  • Awesome Music: "Sinnerman" over the chase scene.
  • Complete Monster:
    • Original film: Detective Ethan Greer is the most ruthless of the cabal of crooked cops. Incidentally filmed by realtor Craig Martin brutally beating and executing two rival drug dealers as his boss watches in their latest power play, Ethan has Craig's wife Jessica kidnapped after killing her housekeeper. Beating Jessica and threatening to kill the Martins' young son, Ethan also kidnaps Craig to retrieve the video and opens fire on the young hero Ryan, who is helping the couple within a crowded bank. Preparing to execute the family until Ryan talks him into meeting to exchange the family for the video, Ethan enjoys hunting down Ryan, beating him down before preparing to shoot him dead and kill the Martins. Savage, sadistic, and more than willing to use violence at a moment's notice even against children, Ethan's personal cruelties make him a more vicious adversary than even the leader of the murdering conspiracy underneath his coldblooded, icy exterior.
    • Connected (2008 Hong Kong remake): Inspector Fok Tak-nang leads a group of corrupt Interpol agents, murdering drug dealers to steal their product. Incidentally filmed by college student Roy Wong, Fok captures Roy's sister Grace after breaking into her home and savagely slitting her maid's throat. Setting his eyes on Grace's young daughter, Fok torments Grace, killing Roy's young friend in front of her and kidnaps her daughter, threatening her life as well, and after obtaining the footage of his crimes, prepares to kill everyone who helped Roy to avoid facing repercussions for his misdeeds.
  • Damsel Scrappy: Kim Basinger's performance as Jessica Martin: For one thing, Basinger, especially during her scenes with bad guy Jason Statham, is so ridiculously over dramatic with her awful whimpers and nervous stuttering. Not only that, but her performance as a whole was widely inconsistent, as if Depending on the Writer. What doesn't gel about Basinger's character is the shrieking over-reaction to violence together with the calm reconstruction of a telephone; the totally girly fight she puts up followed by an accurate slashing of an artery and the then almost nonchalant explanation of the damage she had done to him and how much blood he was going to lose. Even when Basinger is first trying to convince Chris Evans that she had been kidnapped she sounds so bored and uninterested. Her role in general seemed to be short of lines in some places but overdone in others. And what we ultimately got from Basinger was a decidedly shrill, overly-earnest and sometimes deathly wooden acting job.
  • Retroactive Recognition: Sherri Shepherd plays the car impound attendant.
  • Special Effect Failure: It's obvious that the recorded video footage is a high definition video pasted over handycam or cellphone given how recordings of handycam or cellphone back then are usually shaky and grainy, not to mention it lacks signature such as timers.
  • Spiritual Successor: To Phone Booth, also written by Larry Cohen. That film's intentionally limited setting and claustrophobia was inverted by this film's wide-ranging action and motion.

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