Bullet-ridden, breakneck and bloody bonkers, Crank is, basically, everything you could want from a brain-dead action film. The plot? Chev (Jason Statham) spends the entire movie doing progressively more dangerous things in LA in order to keep his adrenaline levels high enough to stop the designer poison rival mobsters have shot into his system from killing him before he can kill them. No, it doesn’t make much sense. Ignore the yawning logic gaps, though, and you’ll have an absolute blast with a film which gleefully pillages ideas from everywhere and hurls them at the audience faster than Chev’s pumping heart.
You’ve barely noticed that the plot’s straight out of 1950’s DOA before directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor are ripping car chases out of Grand Theft Auto. By the time you realise that the action is John Woo circa 1990, they’re already off nicking flashy visual tricks from The Matrix and filtering them through their afternoon’s MTV viewing.
Somehow, it all gels. Don’t ask us how (and don’t ask the directors, either – there are no extras here). With Statham on such broody, shouty, swaggering form, it’s only a matter of time before he’s officially revealed as some Brit backroom cloning blend of Clint Eastwood and Bruce Willis. Crank is, quite simply, a foulmouthed, ludicrous blast.
DVD Extras: Theatrical trailer.
