Crank

Review by Michael Jaffe

CRANK is incredible. By no means an actual ‘Oscar worthy’ film, (one that will be praised by real critics for its emotional center and blah, blah…) CRANK is flat-out stupid, balls to the wall, action comedy. Directed by a duo of first-time directors, Brian Taylor and Mark Neveldine, show some of the tricks they learned as stunt men and bring a completely new view to the action genre. While the plot is laughable for its pointless one mindedness (Chev Chelios, mob hit man, must keep his adrenaline pumping long enough to say goodbye to his girl, kill the guys who poisoned him and maybe save his life) the action comes so fast and furious as Chev tries to keep his heart beating, there isn’t time in the theatre to do anything but grab your seat hard and watch the carnage unfold. The straight foreword point of CRANK is to show Jason Statham being badass while killing people and having sex with his girlfriend in public all in the name of saving his life. The little parts of the film and the trick camera shots that randomly scatter throughout the film keep things interesting, although the movie hardly needs it. This film has one purpose to serve and that is to be a hard R-rated action movie that will have the audience laughing at the ludicrous set pieces and cringing at the butcher knife to the wrist trick. 7/10