MOVIE REVIEWS
Crank
Chris Evangelista
Remember the movie Speed? Sure you do. Keanu Reeves, the Lord of the Dudes, broke his way into action films by trying to stop mad bomber Dennis Hopper from blowing up a bus. The high-concept catch was this: the bus would only explode if it slowed down. Audiences were thrilled. After the success of Speed, there were a handful of action flicks that tried to copy this formula: something would explode, or someone would die, if a certain device didn’t keep doing something – usually speeding.
Well the 90’s came to an end, and high-concept action films started to disappear. People wanted realism in their action films. Or they wanted the Matrix. Or that’s what the studios thought.
Time has passed, and it seems like high concept action flicks are making their way back to the theaters. Already this year we had the much hyped Snakes on A Plane, the highest of high concepts. And now, we have Crank. I can sum up what Crank is about in one sentence: Crank is the movie Speed, only instead of a bus, it’s a HUMAN BODY! I’m pretty sure that was the tag-line for the movie, or it should’ve been.
Crank tells the story of ridiculously named Chev Chelios, played by unlikely action start Jason Statham. To this day I have no idea how a smarmy balding British man became such an action star, but I’m not complaining. Chev is a hit man and a jerk. And that’s about all the character development you get. Who needs it! Here is a film that has the guts to make its lead character a total jerk, and they should be commended for it.
As the film begins, Chev wakes up after being knocked out to discover his arch rival, Verona, has poisoned him with a “Chinese Synthetic.” This will likely kill him quickly, unless, he discovers, he keeps his adrenaline pumping. So Chev bursts out into Los Angeles and begins wreaking havoc. He gets into fights, he runs around, he drives really fast, burns his hand in a waffle iron, shoots up a hospital, and orders a doctor to zap him in the chest with a defibrillator.
The fact that he’s still alive is very distressing to Verona, so soon Chev has a whole slew of generic goons with guns after him.
Also along for the ride is Chev’s incredibly ditzy girlfriend Eve (Amy Smart). Eve has no idea Chev is a hit man, and is always conveniently looking the other way when he’s in the middle of shooting fifty guys with a single gun. When Eve finally does find out the truth, she gets over her shock very quickly. Soon, the two discover a good way to keep Chev’s adrenaline up: having sex in the middle of the street, up against a trash can, as a bus full of oddly placed Asian schoolgirls watch and giggle.
I loved this movie. I loved every stupid, loud, over-the-top second.
Is Crank a good movie? If by “good” you mean “art”, then no, of course not. But who goes into a movie called Crank expecting art? If you want to go to the theater, turn your brain off, and laugh and cheer for two hours as Jason Statham constantly says the F-word in his thick Cockney accent and crashes stolen motorcycles, then get yourself to the theater to see Crank immediately. And make sure you drive really fast on the way home.
