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September 12, 2006
It's not hard to quit Crank
Before I start reviewing this movie, let’s make some things clear. I have impossibly high standards and also take joy in tearing into bad movies. This is a bad movie, so it will be a review that reflects it. I mean seriously, with a tagline like “Poison in his veins. Vengeance in his heart,” you know that you’re going to get what you pay for: an action movie with unrealistic aspirations of being something more.
This is not the casečsince instead what we, the viewers, receive is another action movie with sophomoric art house aspirations and slick visuals.
Clocking in at a whopping 87 minutes long, Crank borrows, this is using the term ‘borrows’ in the loosest sense of the word, heavily from the premise of Speed. In order to survive, the main character must continually keep up a frenetic pace or his heart will explode.
But why does he need “a thousand ways to raise his adrenaline?”
Well, let me tell you: because he killed some generic Asian boss named Don Kim, and after a slew of what can best be described as cute plot twists, double crosses, and “totally shocking” surprises, he gets knocked out and is drugged. Not beaten to death, not tortured, not killed or crippled, just drugged. Not even with something like snake venom, but instead with something that incited him into a bizarre fury to seek revenge.
Without giving too much away, it’s a good thing that underneath his excessively violent exterior, Chev Chelios (Jason Statham) has a heart of gold and a sensitive soul. I’m not kidding, and I really hope that sounds as stupid as it felt to write it.
So when one goes to the movies, what does one go for? I can’t claim to have the answer for everyone, but certainly not this. It was this unlikely question that I found myself facing when sitting at the theater bored out of my mind.
Crank was a special breed of action movie, if ever there could be one, in that it had all the trapping of being a campy cult classic but none of the heart. A Fight Club without that special something, this strange cross of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas acid trip hilarity meets Grand Theft Auto is more than a little unsettling and not just because the hero is a hit man. But not just a hit man, he’s also a violent liar, and an unremorseful killer.
What a movie needs most, aside from a plausible plot, is a sense of self-awareness without violently breaching the fourth wall; this may have been the only thing the movie got right and that is only thanks to a single scene in which Chev’s doctor friend, Doc Miles (Dwight Yoakam), says his heart should be in a medical journal considering all it’s been through.
Well, at least it’s more tasteful than 9/11: The Graphic Novelization, maybe. So come Friday, go rent Pretty in Pink instead. Chill out at home, and get in touch with your sensitive side.
Posted by dwright at September 12, 2006 03:35 PM
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