Crank

Crank is an old-school action flick, a real non-stop roller coaster ride. It starts off with Chev Chelios finding out he’s been poisoned with the “Beijing Cocktail”, that slowly but surely drops your heart rate to zero, killing you. He’s told to keep moving and keep his adrenaline flowing to fight off the poison. In doing so, he becomes a one man wrecking crew, demolishing shopping malls, cars, hotels, you name it. He fights people hand to hand, blows stuff up and shoots plenty of bad guys.

One of the best things about the movie is the subtle humour in the background, like how most of the time he’s calmly talking on his cell phone while in the middle of a car chase, gunfight or something else. His time in the hospital, running around in a gown is hilarious. There is tons of dark humour and great one liners throughout the movie, and the plot is breakneck. Amy Smart does a pretty good job of playing the part of his ditzy girlfriend, who’s more concerned with turning off her waffle iron than escaping the bad guys. Her scene in Chinatown with Stratham is side-splitting, from her reaction to his request, to the Japanese students on the bus, to the appreciative crowd.

Essentially, it is like the Transporter movies, but with more adult content, from drug use to nudity to violence, and where the Transporter movies were kind of cheesy, Crank is over the top, a throwback to the violent films of the 80s like Terminator and Commando. This is one of those movies you will either love or hate, and I'm not ashamed to say I loved it.


9 out of 10