Watching “Deception” the other night, I realized that so many films these days couldn’t exist without the technology of cell phones. Obviously they are a part of life, but when the plot hinges on phone calls, it becomes rather tiresome.

In “Deception” Ewan McGregor’s phone is secretly switched for Hugh Jackman’s. He then becomes party to a secret ‘list’ of callers who arrange to meet for anonymous sex. The plot quickly becomes preposterous, involving murder and blackmail yet McGregor’s character never thinks to go to the police with his phone to trace the culprit.

“One Missed Call” was a horror film about ‘haunted’ cell phones, which would mysteriously ring and herald the owner’s own horrific death. Nicely spoofed in “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” this type of ‘technology-metaphor’ had previously been exploited in “The Ring,” where VHS tapes were used much more effectively.

By far the worst offender is “88 Minutes”, where Al Pacino might as well have had a phone surgically attached to his ear. But that might have ruined his hair style I suppose. In this laughably bad ‘thriller’ Pacino answers the phone at every turn of the plot. He even manages to survive most of the film using someone’s else’s phone, yet never seems to struggle to find the right number or find the correct function key. And no one ever called looking for the actual owner of the phone! Even at the climactic scene, with a person’s life in the balance, he stops to make a call.

When phones are so present in films, I always find myself wondering whether the actor is actually talking to someone at the other end of the line, perhaps the first A.D. feeding him dialogue? Or whether they are truly acting, having a one-way conversation. Either way, I’m distracted from the story and it often seems like a lazy way to further the plot.