Movie Review: Crank

August 23, 2006 by Brendan
Filed under: Movie News, Movie Reviews

Movie Review: Crank In “Crank”, Jason Statham stars as Chev Chelios, a hitman for a gang who is about to have the worst day of his life. You see, Chelios has pissed off an up-and-coming gangster and the gangster has decided to get even with Chelios by injecting him with a Chinese poison that will kill Chelios before the end of the day. But Chelios soon realizes that if he keeps the adrenilin in his body flowing, the drug is ineffective so he pumps himself full of cocaine, Red Bull, Rockstar and a bunch of other crap to keep himself going. And when he feels his adrenelin levels coming down, he finds other ways to keep the juices flowing, whether it be driving his car full speed down the streets of Los Angeles or having sex with his dopey girlfriend (played by Amy Smart) in the middle of a sidewalk in Chinatown. Chelios does everything he can to stay alive and in doing so, wreaks havoc on the entire city of L.A. but his main goal soon becomes revenge as he hunts down the punk who poisoned him and attempts to get his head on a platter before he dies.

Crank is sort of a confusing movie in that it takes a guy, Jason Statham, who is one of the most charismatic and likeable characters in movies today, whether he plays a good or a bad guy and it makes him into a complete jerk. I think I would have liked “Crank” a lot more had I actually been cheering for Statham to beat the drug and kill the asshole who poisoned him but about halfway through the movie, I wanted Chelios as dead as a doormat. I mean, the guy didn’t have one redeeming quality – not one. And the explicit sex scene with Amy Smart, well, I just didn’t get that. It was as disturbing a scene I’ve seen in a movie since we saw Kathy Bates jump in the hottub with Nicholson in About Schmidt.

In all fairness to “Crank”, I’m pretty sure the movie didn’t want us to like Chelios. But a movie with no likeable characters, a pretty disgusting sex scene (even though it features Amy Smart), too many scenes with Statham’s ass and a cross-dressing informant, just isn’t my cup of tea. Yeah, the action was okay at times but not really anything ground-breaking and nothing we haven’t seen before. I think the only thing that satisfied me with “Crank” was the ending and that ain’t saying too much about the movie. (4 out of 10)

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