crank

AC/SL 2006 83m ENGLISH
N/SV

CAST: Jason Statham, Amy Smart, Efren Ramirez, Jose Pablo Cantillo, Carlos Sanz, Keone Young & Dwight Yoakam

CREDITS: Directors/Screenwriters: Mark Neveldine/Brian Taylor; Producers: Michael Davis/Gary Lucchesi/Tom Rosenberg/Skip Williamson/Richard Wright; Director of Photography: Adam Biddle; Production Designer: Jerry Fleming; Editor: Brian Berdan; Costume Designer: Christopher Lawrence; Music: Paul Haslinger

THE SYNOPSIS

Meet Chev Chelios (Statham). He’s a British hitman who’s just been poisoned and has only a few hours to live. What to do? If you’re Chev Chelios, you find the f@#kers who did this and waste ‘em all!

Thanks to the information & advise provided to him by his personal physician, Doc Miles (Yoakam), we learn that Chev has been injected with the Beijing Cocktail--which will kill him soon. Doc’s advise? Keep moving about to inhibit the drug until an anecdote can be found.

In other words, Chev must keep active (i.e. heartbeat and adrenline pumping)! Between Doc’s help and that of his transvestite chum Kaylo (Ramirez), Chev causes havoc around Los Angeles.

Between shootouts with the responsible parties, led by hotheaded Verona (Cantillo) (and done so because Chev recently botched an important hit) and getting it on with his sweet, lovely girlfriend Eve (Smart), Chev comes to realize that his boss, Carlito (Sanz) is ultimately behind it all. He’s about to make a very big deal with the Korean Mob and Chev allowed their boss, Don Kim (Young) to live. Or something like that.

Armed with guns, a nice suit and a shitload of attitude, Chev takes out all enemies. But in the end, even he can’t outwit Death. Still, Chev Chelios goes out in style!

THE CRITIQUE

Speed (minus the bus)-meets-D.O.A. That was what the pitch to produce CRANK probably sounded like! It’s the kind of movie that starts--and doesn’t stop for a brisk 83 minutes--yet packs in as much as it can in a compressed format. What gets left out? A cohesive script, for one...written by the multi-hyphenate team of Mark Neveldine & Brian Taylor.

Then again, what the plot lacks in narrative focus makes up for in anarchic & unapologetic raison d'être. As the movie progresses, the “oh crap...they didn’t just do that!” factor is ratcheted up a notch. That’s screenwriting! (Not really, but the movie does maintain a psychotic glee throughout...)

Helmed by Neveldine & Taylor in a video game-on-crack style, CRANK looks good and moves fast (both tyro directors have performed other duties on many movie, music video & commercials projects over the years--hence the multi-hyphenate moniker).

It was lensed in the budding HD format by up-and-coming cinematographer Adam Biddle, brother of the late, great cinematographer Adrian Biddle (V For Vendetta/Event Horizon/1492). Now, you all know how I feel about HD video being used to make movies (I’m not fond of it for theatrical releases)--but I do have to say that the HD cinematography looked appropriate for this type of movie: concurrently ragged & stylish. Nicely-done, if on the cheap (a $12,000,000 budget).

Also worthy of mention is the hyperkinetic cutting by veteran editor Brian Berdan (The Cave/Grosse Pointe Blank/Natural Born Killers). In those 83 minutes of runtime, I don’t think that there was a shot lasting more than 3 seconds on-screen. Normally, this would annoy me to no end--but again, in this case, it’s warranted.

Other tech credits (spartan production design, doped-up score/soundtrack, etc.) are passable. One other note of merit should go to the stunt team, coordinators and anyone else involved in the possibility-of-getting-hurt-or-killed category. They earned their money on this show, that’s for sure!

THE BOTTOM LINE

A balls-to-the wall action movie that should suck--yet doesn’t. Before you think that CRANK is the must-see movie of the year, it’s not. But for some nasty fun or boys’ night out (at the theater) or in (on DVD), it’s worth the far-fetched ride.