What with movies like Phone Booth and Cellular hitting the multiplex screens (and making some solid coin), it only stands to reason that we'd eventually get a few copycat thrillers. The reason you're only hearing of Beeper now is that, because it's pretty bad, it's been sitting on a shelf somewhere, just waiting to be purchased and distributed.

Starring Ed Quinn (a guy I've never heard of) and featuring indie folks like Joey Lauren Adams and Harvey Keitel, Beeper might look like a half-solid weeknight rental...

Actually, come to think of it, no it doesn't.

Picture the world's most conventional kidnapping thriller, and then set the thing in India ... or director Jack Sholder's closest approximation of India. (Some of the footage looks pretty authentic, while some of it looks like a ridiculously blatant collection of sets.)

Quinn plays Richard Avery, a widower doctor dude who's in India to participate in a medical convention. Since he's a good dad, Dick decides to bring his young son along for the trip. Unable to acquire a reliable babysitter in unfamiliar surroundings, Dr. Avery brings the kid to a seminar, but when the lights go down for a slide show, the goofy tyke disappears.

Ms. Adams is an American consulate something-or-other; Mr. Keitel is a seamy drug dealer who unwittingly takes possession of the titular Beeper that Dr. Avery has received from the kidnappers and...

You could probably fill in every single Beeper blank from here.

The three leads march through the familiarity with just enough professionalism to earn some praise (hey, actors gotta eat), but the color-by-numbers screenplay offers not even the most minuscule iota of something new, unique, or exciting. And it's kind of a shame, too, because Jack Sholder's been known to direct some really solid b-movies in his time: Alone in the Dark, The Hidden, Nightmare on Elm Street 2. In more recent years, Mr. Sholder has given us Wishmaster 2, Arachnid, and Sketch Artist 2: Hands That See. So obviously it's just a massive crapshoot when Jack Sholder's involved.

The DVD

Video: It's a perfectly serviceable, if non-dazzling, anamorphic widescreen (1.78:1) transfer ... not that the movie is any sort of slick visual masterwork.

Audio: Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo.

Extras: Just a bunch of trailers for Beeper, Southern Justice, The Choke, and Dallas 362.

Final Thoughts

Beeper is the sort of movie that's so familiar and so generic that you're just sure it's going to flip you out by offering a real mega-twist. It doesn't.

Should it pop up on cable one insomniatic evening and you can watch it without dropping any money, sure, give it a spin and see if it works for you. Me, I'm a guy who aims to see every damn movie Harvey Keitel has ever been in, so Beeper is just one to scratch off the checklist.