Crank

[Stephen]

Anyone seen this? I was reluctant to go after having to put up with 2 hours of Statham's appalling yank accent 3 years ago in The Transporter but this looked too irresistably stupid to stay away from. As a bonus, I was to find he keeps his good old cockernee voice for the duration of this one, though does occasionally spoil it by saying things like 'douche bag'.

Anyway, it's utterly fucking stupid but pretty exciting/funny. For those who don't know, the main premise of the film is this. Jason Statham plays the preposterously named Chev Chelios (I mean, really) who is a hitman for a crime syndicate. One morning he wakes up feeling like shit and finds out he's been poisoned and has about an hour to live. Pretty soon he discovers that the only way to not die is to keep his adrenaline levels - and therefore his heartrate - up through excitement/fear/pain. Cue lots of ridiculous and irresponsible behaviour, bad language and gratuitous violence.

Some interesting production here too, though I'm not sure how much of it really worked. Probably too many ideas in there for them to all be successful but it was certainly innovative.

I recommend, though can't see it winning any oscars. Would probably sit quite well in a double bill along with Snakes on a Plane.

[grady]

me thinks this is the film Snakes on a Plane wanted to be.

I'm seeing it tomorrow with a coworker from at a beer theater I occassionally moonlight at here in Portland slinging film through the sprokets.

My friend Dieter put it best when asking, "Grant, when are we gonna go see Transporter 3? I work all weekend and have Wed. off."

me: "Wednesday it is then."

Dieter: "Drinks at Alessandros then?"

me: "Indeed."

Dieter: "It's settled."

So tomorrow is the day. A couple or three of Bourbons (Knob Creek on the rocks) with a beer back in short sucession, and then onward to the Mall to see Transporter 3 for free. (We can't really justify paying for it, so I'm hitting up some of my old theater friends, nor do we think the owner of the beer theater we work at would end up booking CRANK when it hits the discount circuit in about two weeks.)

[grady]

Crank was a pretty good time in a purely guilty pleasure sense.

I can easily imagine the pitch idea for this film, just intense action all the time, even when it's not even intense. "We'll just move the camera around a lot and have tons of visual effects," thought the director out loud to the nodding agreements of the studio chief and agents in the room.

The film is just absurd, but that is where it's fun arises. It's just plain stupid. But it's far more enjoyable than either of the Transporters could ever have hoped to have been.

If this film is playing somewhere cheap, or minimal cost can be incurred upon oneself, see it. You'll have a good time. Alcohol and other substance may help increase the level of enjoyment for this videogame type film.