Crank (2006)
Rated R for strong violence, pervasive language, sexuality, nudity and drug use
Written by: Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor
Directed by: Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor
Starring: Jason Statham, Amy Smart, Efren Ramirez, Dwight Yoakam
A mindless video game-esque action movie written and directed by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor and featuring Jason Statham.
"I'm alive! I'M ALIVE!" -- Chev Chelios
Chev Chelios (Statham) is a syndicated assassin trying to get out of the business. When he wakes up after a job, he finds that he has been poisoned with "the Beijing Cocktail," also referred to as "the Chinese shit," a drug that will stop his heart in one hour unless he can keep his adrenaline flowing. Chelios then sets out to bid farewell to his girlfriend, Eve (Smart), exact revenge on Verona (Jose Pablo Cantillo), the rival assassin that poisoned him, and try to find an antidote.
The next 87 minutes are a string of increasingly bizarre events as Chelios tries to keep his heart beating. He snorts cocaine, beats the hell out of a group of his friends, leads police on a car chase through a shopping mall, injects himself with a syringe full of epinephrine, has sex with his girlfriend on a busy street, and engages in a fistfight while dangling from a helicopter, all presented in the most over-the-top, in-your-face manner possible.
Fun fact: Chev Chelios's heart is a recurring theme in the movie. The arcade game Berzerk,
which the movie tributes heavily, was the first video game to be connected to the death of a player
after two young men (one in 1981 and one in 1982) suffered fatal heart attacks after playing.
Regardless of its shortcomings, the movie does have its moments, including a largely unscripted scene (witnessed, according to Amy Smart, by over 200 people who hadn't been informed that a movie was being filmed, and followed by a standing ovation) in which Chelios talks his girlfriend into having sex with him in the middle of a public market, causing him to jubilantly shout "I'm alive! I'M ALIVE!" at the top of his lungs. Another enjoyable scene features Chelios, high as a kite on the drugs he's been using to stay alive, confronting an armed gang of assassins armed only with his fingers in the shape of a gun. He points his "finger pistol" at the leaders of the gang in turn, who assume that he is hallucinating, before turning to one of their lackeys and miming firing a gun while calmly making a gunshot noise with his mouth. The gang leaders stare in astonishment as the thug falls dead from a real gunshot wound delivered by another gang standing off-camera behind Chelios.
"Boosh." -- Chev Chelios
The movie's key plot point (Statham's character trying to retire from the assassination business) is clever, if somewhat overused; unfortunately, Crank is too hyperactive and schizophrenic to present it well, seeming to be someone's excuse to film a script that reads like an 80's arcade game (in fact, it continually pays homage to arcade games in general and the 1980 shooter Berzerk specifically). Passable if you're looking for mindless action for an hour and a half, but pretty forgettable otherwise. I won't spoil what little there is to the ending, but I'll just say that it's in keeping with the rest of the movie.