I love Jason Statham’s movies for the most part, and no one else could have pulled off the role of Handsome Rob in The Italian Job with the flair that he did. Statham has a swagger like no other, and the bull-necked stride he uses to catch up to his prey in his Transporter movies is awesome.
However, Crank just didn’t deliver. Like its protagonist, it had an erratic heart rhythm. At times the movie sailed for short bursts, then it collapsed under its own weight.
Statham stars as Chev Chelios, a hitman who’s been injected with a Chinese poison that will kill him if his heart rate drops to a resting beat. He has to find ways to stay amped up throughout the movie or die (as if having a death threat hanging over his head wouldn’t automatically do that).
With that premise, Statham kills, crashes, attacks, and confronts everything and everyone that gets in his way as he struggles to keep his girlfriend Eve (Amy Smart) out of harm’s way and get his pound of flesh in revenge. The action lags a little from time to time despite the pressure and push of the situation, and it’s far too easy to get confused over who’s who and what’s going on.
The movie was written and directed by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, both of whom have a mass of credits in the film business in stunts, photography, acting, and special effects. They definitely knew the audience they were going for, and they went for the throat.
I just didn’t buy into Statham’s character, even though I was predisposed to like him. The character was too thin, and there wasn’t anything to root for. I didn’t feel like I ever got to know him. Everyone else around him were cardboard cutouts.
Stunt-heavy, the movie didn’t quite come together in that area either. I missed Statham’s martial arts. Not that he does them in every movie, but we were left with endless gunfights and violent action that was more brutal than choreographed.
Even when the plot came together at the end, impossibilities stack on each other to the breaking point. There was no way everything could have gone down the way the movie showed it. The final confrontation at the end would have been impossible to pull off without some of Chelios’s enemies knowing what was coming.
In the end, Crank is a decent watch for a guy’s night out. It comes with a “family-friendly” version on the disc, but the overall story isn’t family friendly by any stretch of the imagination, and it’s too watered down for action fans.
