Crank

Crank is an insane action movie that stars Jason Statham, who’s absolutely great in this, as Chev Chelios, a man whose past is slowly revealed to us. But we know that he has been injected with a poison which will kill him if he slows down. It’s basically Speed, but in this case with a human body having to not stop. After waking up, he finds a tape showing a video of what a group of gangsters did to him, and then it’s a race against his heart to seek revenge.

So, this is a great concept for a movie and I had tons of fun with this movie. It’s seriously mindless entertainment. I think that if you don’t take it seriously and don’t criticise it for being totally over-the-top, then you’ll have a blast. An absolute BLAST! I have to say I had way more fun than I had with Speed. Don’t get me wrong, Speed is a good film, but this powers the audience with a bigger, meaner electrical punch. It keeps us interested and I came to empathise with the main character. Jason Statham gives his best performance and is himself fully engaged and enjoying the role. Amy Smart is also really good in her role, and it’s funny because she doesn’t realise what’s really going on while these gangsters are trying to kill them. To say that there’s a lot of violence is an understatement. It’s packed to the brim with violent outbursts from Statham. Its also interesting because he has to do it. The movie is hilarious in some parts, notably the Chinatown scene where Jason Statham gets down and dirty with Amy Smart. It’s hilarious as he pumps into her and flails out his arms shouting, “I’m alive”, with all these people standing around them. Clearly this is a movie to not be taking seriously, and if you think like that you will thoroughly enjoy it. Sure, it is violent, it is foul-mouthed, but there’s heaps of entertainment in this film. The gangsters are all cliché’s, but that does nothing to detract from this head-trip of an action movie. I especially like the scene where he glides through the streets on a motorcycle while standing on the seat. It’s an accident waiting to happen – and spoiler, it does. This is no Expendables shoot-out extravaganza, and it’s all the better for not featuring shoot-outs as every action scene. It does pass The Expendables (where Jason Statham starred, also) in quality, although this seems like a smaller budget. I haven’t talked about the two directors, Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor who absolutely get the frenetic, back-and-forth action spot on. It’s a great feat of brilliant, text-book, action direction. These directors are fearless in their stunts and really deserve a reward for daring directors. This film will surely not be for everyone and people might be easily offended by the content up on screen, but if you can get past that, then there’s a lot of fun to be had. This film just keeps going, like the protagonist, up until the very end. It can become a bit predictable sometimes, because we all know that there’s going to be a face-off at the end of the film, it always happens that way. But again, that’s ok because we get all this outrageous action happening nearly all the time. The camera in this is defaulted to shakycam, it seems like they use it all the time, but some shots are used with steadycam, which is nice. I don’t really mind the shakycam in this film, it fits well with the overall premise and action. It usually makes me annoyed sometimes and I had this whilst watching The Bourne Ultimatum, where they just over use the shakycam to a head dizzying degree and you end up moving around, trying to watch the corners of the screen which, trying to catch a glimpse of something that is shown sparsely. It’s annoying, but in this it’s totally fine and goes overlooked. I forgot about it after some scenes.

I have to say that this is one of the best action films I have seen and is the definition of no brainer fun!