Crank (2006)

Director: Mark Neveldine & Brian Taylor
Venue: Theater
Trailer

I had decided on a whim to take my little brother and his girlfriend to see a movie. We were on the way home and I had the sudden urge to go to the theater. So, instead of checking my local listings, I just parked the car at an AMC and went to the box office. What I’d been hoping for, was to catch one of the new horror flicks just released. What I settled for was Crank.

If you happened to catch the preview for this film, you already know the plot line. Chev Chelios (Jason Statham) has been injected with a synthetic Asian poison. The drug will take over his system and slow his heart to a stop if he doesn’t keep the adrenaline pumping through his blood. Chelios contacts his doctor and his girlfriend and speeds off to find the gangsters who sentenced him to die.

Plot: 1 star

Statham first drew my attention through a series of British films (Snatch, Mean Machine and Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels). He went on to do The Transporter and its sequel. While he’s not really a bad actor, he typically only plays one type of character. But, it’s always a character with a sexy accent. His girlfriend Eve (Amy Smart) is the kind of ditzy blone stoner girl I generally hate in movies. However, for some reason I enjoyed her acting in Crank. The interaction between the two characters is cute and not overdone. All of the gangsters were terrible actors playing awfully sterotypical parts. Chev’s little gay friend (Efren Ramirez) is kind of amusing, but not terribly necessary to the story line.

Acting: 2 stars

Since Crank is one big adrenaline quest, it is packed with action. There are gun battles, fist fights, cars flipping over, chases and one final battle aboard a helicopter. Unfortunately, this is yet another example of Hollywood action choreography. The camera is always focused to tightly on the actors during the hand-to-hand sequences to show the full range of each punch, kick, or head-butt. What Americans are good at, generally speaking, are explosions and car stunts. The very last scene, in which Celios and his enemy Verona (Jose Pablo Cantillo) battle in the air smacks way too much of blue-screen cut-and-paste photography. In other words, it’s very obviously fake. For a movie that packs so much action, it wasn’t enough to get my adrenaline pumping.

Action: 2 stars

The visual effects in Crank, blue screen excluded, are interesting. Since Chev is doped up with poison, the perspective through his eyes is wavy and distorted. The scenes shown through the character’s eyes do a good job of conveying the disorientation that he is struggling with. A good deal of the film is alternately sped up and slowed down, which was an effect that worked well in some scenes, but not so well in others. The naked girls in the plastic bubbles were a nice touch.

Visual: 3 stars

The dialogue in Crank is fairly weak. There was no original style to any of the character’s lines. Most of the gangsters have very tired, stereotypical Latino accents and deliver lines that are just as tired and stereotypical. There is a lot of macho posturing and not much in the way of cool comebacks.

Dialogue: 1 star

To conclude, Crank was a movie that I much rather would have liked to have rented than have forked over the admission for three. It wouldn’t have been worth the cost of one ticket.

Alternate viewing choice: Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels
IMDB site
Official site
Rotten Tomatoes review

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