97 - Crank review

As humans, our biggest problem is that we are all finite. Whatever your views on the afterlife, the simple fact remains that someday, for some reason, our bodies will cease to sustain us, whether we like it or not. Reminders of our mortality can thus be extremely sobering, imbuing value on even the smallest actions and details of our waking moments.

Though Crank has a great set-up for this sort of solemn reflection, the filmmakers are not the sort of people concerned with thoughtful introspection. Their protagonist wakes up lacking enough time to finish a 24 marathon, but finds himself in such a hurry to kill the people who injected him with an adrenaline draining poison that he skips the small stuff. Instead, he focuses on firefights, slicing off limbs, motorcycle stunts, and everyone’s secret favorite, public fornication.

See, mob assassin Chev Chelios (Jason Statham) wakes up one morning to discover that a rival gangster has laced his system with a toxin that will soon shut off his heart. Keeping himself moving turns out to be the only way to delay the inevitable, and terminating the Hispanic Stereotype who did this to him turns out to be priority numero uno. Chev races about Los Angeles, brutalizing anyone who looks at him cross-eyed in his accelerated revenge and Red Bull powered rampage. He receives quick assistance Doc Miles (Dwight Yoakam), who acts as medical advisor, and Eve (Amy Smart), who resorts to obscene and exhibitionistic lengths to keep Chev alert.

It’s hyper-violent, cringe inducing, and bewilderingly stale. Apart from the premise (presumably) and an ending that gives the audience more credit than most in the genre, Crank acts like a weak drug that we have long gotten used to, the supposedly shocking extremity coming off far too cartoonish for us to care. Every character is born from the archetypes of an 8th grader, with lame tricks such as charting Chev’s progress via Google Map littered throughout, reminding us mostly of how desperate the filmmakers were to appeal to the jittery young adults who shouldn’t watch this in the first place. It only takes 20 minutes for the formula to make itself painfully clear; Chev goes and does something that would earn any film an instant R rating, drives somewhere else, and repeats.

Some argue that the non-stop frenzy makes at the minimum for an experience that doesn’t bore, but if nothing dazzles, enlightens, or surprises, how can we not yawn? A film like Alexander Payne’s Sideways may focus on two men talking about wine and women, and have not a single gruesome kill or bizarre camera angle, but each frame holds a thousand fold the interest of Crank’s most intense scene. Even at a slim 87 minutes, I was checking my watch even more than Chev.

Against my better judgement, I hoped for more. The trailers made it clear that theatergoers were not in for a particularly serious experience, but even one or two scenes could have worked wonders. How about having Chev questioning his own actions, or trying to make amends for past wrongs, or even just examining his own desires and regrets? Of all professions, perhaps an assassin would have something interesting to say about mortality and having to die before your time has run out naturally. I suppose that the filmmakers of Crank couldn’t be bothered with minute concerns such a mortality. Much like the rest of us.

1 out of 5