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Statham's great send up
CRANK
Directed by Mark Neledine and Brian Taylor
Certificate 18
JASON STATHAM is an unreformed tough nut of the Mitchell Brothers variety.
He has come to represent a certain genre of acting that involves little more than swearing loudly in a Cockney accent.
But while every film he touches fails to lurch out of a quagmire of testosterone, Crank is such a parody, and has such an element of unreformed machoism about it, that you can’t fail to enjoy this implausible, nonsensical and hugely irresponsible fun.
Statham is Chev Chelios, an English assassin who has made his home on the west coast.
But Chev is living on borrowed time. In revenge for previous misdemeanours, he has been poisoned by a bunch of nasty cutthroats you are ever likely to see, and the serum inside him, known as a Beijing Cocktail, will kill him in minutes were he to sit down, relax, and put his feet up.
It works like this: only adrenaline is keeping him alive, staving off the poison seeping through his veins.
This means he has to find a variety of things to keep the pulse racing while he finds the people who administered the dose and reek his increasingly bloody revenge.
And what fun directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor have creating the circumstances he needs to keep going.
He causes carnage in shops, rampages through hospitals in search of adrenaline drugs, indulges in a variety of public sex acts, and, of course, slays any one in his way or remotely responsible for his fate.
There are some imaginatively thought out chase scenes, some silly fights and lots of nice cars to ogle at. But overall it works because it doesn’t take itself seriously, and sends up the action adventure films Statham makes a living from. |
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