"Crank" (2006) - Movie Review

When I watched the trailer of “Crank” a few months ago, I was all pumped up to watch it. I was not able to view it in the theatres and hence immediately put it in my queue of DVD list. It was Friday and I had the DVD. I removed the logical part of my brain to view the fast paced non-stop action thriller, “Crank”. And then it happened. I got fooled by the trailer. “Crank” directed by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor stars Jason Statham and Amy Smart.

Chev Chelios (Jason Statham) gets injected by a potent and weird Chinese medicine. As usual, the people who wants him dead, need some fun and provide a nice opportunity to make a professional hitman go crazy. Hence instead of shooting him in the head while he is sleeping, they inject him with some crazy drug. The drug “supposedly” slows down his heart and the only way for him to stay alive is to keep the adrenaline rush consistent. The simplest of all things to achieve it is to “Run” but Chev has other plans. He wants to get vengeance and make “love” to his girl friend in front of some 200 people.

“Crank” is the typical example of how a nice plot can be butchered by worst possible direction and screenplay. Adding to it, they mix it up with out of place soundtrack. The story plot definitely had the three main ingredients to keep the viewers glued to the seats – Action, fast pace and some kick ass dark comedy. They had all the right intentions of delivering those but the translation of plot into a screenplay failed. It is not failure as is in “failure”. It is a failure as in “FAILURE”. Something went horribly wrong and the viewers are puzzled on what exactly they want to achieve.

The viewers may not need to understand what kind of person Chev is, but at least there needs to be some justification for his actions. He kicks off the TV screen after seeing he was poisoned. Typical. The antagonist laughs with suppressing his anger seeing his brother’s hand. Typical. Trying to have a dark comedy to pep up the pace. Typical. Of all the ways to pump adrenaline, Chev blows up things, stands on a bike and falls, get shot in his butt and wage a fight against a group of armed men in a club – Not Typical, but horrible.

Jason Statham wanted to maintain his “Transporter” image and tries to incorporate it with some crazy screeching shouts and stern responses. It is either that the characterization was not proposed to him in a proper manner or he did not want to shed his hard and fast character of “Transporter”. Amy Smart as Eve has nothing to do but aimlessly satisfy her boyfriend. “Paper thin characters” are said when the characters have no explanation or conviction for their actions, but the characters in “Crank” roam around like a headless duck.

I do not know who made the trailer for this but they did an amazing job. If it was shot by the directors, then they have the right solid intentions to give a solid entertainer but everything went wrong during the process of “Crank”. If it is shot by some one else, then the movie should have been directed by them. “Crank” is a disappointment.