Image courtesy of www.impawards.com
Director :
Mark Neveldine
Brian Taylor
Cast :
Jason Statham”¦”¦”¦.Chev Chelios
Action films thrive on one simple concept: simplicity. The vast majority of the great ones in the genre, from Speed to Die Hard, can be summed up in a few short sentences. Keep the film simple, or so it seems, and the production crew can focus on the things that make action movies great: short snappy dialogue and a heaping helping of violence. And while not exactly an original concept, Crank is another in an increasing series of movies that realize the ludicrous nature of their story from the beginning and just run with it.
Chev Chelios (Jason Statham) is a top level assassin looking to exit the field, having botched his last assignment in a vain attempt at leaving the business. His superiors are less then pleased and get revenge by having him injected with a serum that slows his heart down. With less than an hour to exact his revenge, Chelios has to continue to find ways to keep his adrenaline levels up while hunting down those injected him. From here he has to find ways of keeping his adrenaline level up while he searches for those who have given him a death sentence, hoping his heart doesn’t give out midway through the process.
And from the start Crank is an over the top action film to every degree. Much like Snakes on a Plane was earlier this year, Crank is a self-aware film that realizes it’s pretty bad and decides that the best course of action is to just embrace this awfulness and run with it. Everything about the film, from its dialogue to its action sequences, is taken to an excessive level. The film doesn’t try and stray the line of a ‘PG-13′ or an ‘R’ rating; co-directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor opt to try and get as close to an ‘NC-17′ as possible without going over; it’s more comic than it is stomach-turning. They create an energetic atmosphere to the proceedings, giving the action scenes an elevated importance, but those aren’t the film’s high lights.
Crank finds its high points, shockingly enough, in its comedy. For an above average action film it’s a great comedy, as the action scenes come off well enough to keep it entertaining, but the film’s humorous moments are for the most part unintentional and yet are wildly hilarious. The comedy and action seem to coincide with the film’s awkward pacing; at points Crank has the look and feel of a nail-biting thriller and at others it’s closer to Tango & Cash. While the effects and camerawork keeps the film interesting, the story-telling is awkward throughout the film and takes away from it immensely. But it is the perfect vehicle for the star of the Transporter franchise.
Statham is his usual action persona self, glum-faced and spitting out ridiculous one-liners with ease, but it’s this persona that works exactly with what the film is trying to do. Marketed as a sort of Speed like hybrid, which is an action thriller and not an action comedy, this is another top notch vehicle of Statham to try to become the next big action star with. He brings the same sort of personality to Chev Chelios, perhaps the best action character name in the last decade, as the sort of everyman hero that’s easy to root. Statham is super serous all the time with a slight wink to the audience in the same way that Christopher Reeve brought to Superman; he’s in on the humorous nature of the proceedings with the rest of the audience with a wink and a smile.
