{"id":12395,"date":"2025-07-07T23:53:44","date_gmt":"2025-07-08T03:53:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=12395"},"modified":"2025-07-07T23:53:44","modified_gmt":"2025-07-08T03:53:44","slug":"crank","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2025\/07\/07\/crank\/","title":{"rendered":"Crank"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Crank <\/strong>(2006)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Lionsgate\/Action\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 87 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (strong bloody violence, pervasive language, sexual content, nudity, drug use)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Neveldine\/Taylor\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Neveldine\/Taylor\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Paul Haslinger\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Adam Biddle\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: September 1, 2006 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Jason Statham, Amy Smart, Jose Pablo Cantillo, Efren Ramirez, Dwight Yoakam, Carlos Sanz, Reno Wilson, Edi Gathegi, Glenn Howerton, Jay Xcala, Keone Young, Valarie Rae Miller, Yousuf Azami.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $27.8M (US)\/$42.9M (World)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

\u00a0Try to image an ADHD preteen playing first-person video games while all hopped up on Red Bull. That should give you an idea of what to expect from Crank<\/strong>, a zany action flick starring Jason Statham (The Transporter) as a hitman with a short life expectancy, one hour to be exact. Somebody injected him with poison for which there is no antidote and he intends to avenge his murder before his time runs out. Yes, Crank<\/strong> is as silly as it sounds. It\u2019s loud, jumpy and super violent. It\u2019s also a lot of fun.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The morning after he kills a Triad leader, Chev Chelios (Statham) wakes up to discover that he had a visitor while he slept. A small time gangster named Ricky Verona (Cantillo, The Walking Dead) broke in and injected with something everybody calls \u201cChinese s***\u201d. Basically, it\u2019s a poison that inhibits the flow of adrenaline and slows the heart, eventually killing the victim. The only way for Chev to stay alive long enough to find and kill Ricky is to keep his adrenaline flowing by any means necessary. He chugs a lot of energy drinks, gets into fights with gangsters and cops, drives his car through a shopping mall (no, he doesn\u2019t run into Jake and Elwood), wreaks havoc in a hospital while searching for epinephrine and has sex with his girlfriend Eve (Smart, Road Trip) in a very public place (i.e. the streets of Chinatown). It all leads to a final showdown with Ricky and his henchmen on a hotel rooftop.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Ordinarily, I wouldn\u2019t give a movie like Crank<\/strong> a favorable review. It\u2019s one of those loud, hyper-edited jobs that more closely resemble a video game than a movie. Such movies are aimed at people with such short attention spans they can\u2019t even follow a simple fight scene. The fight scenes in Crank<\/strong> utilize the quick-cut editing I\u2019ve come to detest over the years. It doesn\u2019t increase the excitement level, it just confuses matters. None of this applies to Crank<\/strong>. What\u2019s detrimental to so many recent big-budget action spectacles works in this movie\u2019s favor. The writer-director team of Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor (the unfortunate Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance) openly admit what their movie is with an opening credits sequence that looks like an old video game with its retro computer graphics. It\u2019s a cool way to get the party started.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I thoroughly enjoyed Crank<\/strong>! It\u2019s so gloriously OTT, how could I feel otherwise? Statham is one of the biggest bad asses in the action genre right now. With that British accent and don\u2019t give a f*** attitude, Chev Chelios isn\u2019t just a man; he\u2019s a force of nature that defies reckoning of any sort. Like its \u201chero\u201d, Crank<\/strong> hits the ground running and doesn\u2019t stop until the final frame. It has many great scenes. The ride through the mall ends not at a check-out counter but an escalator that Chev can\u2019t quite clear in his car. In the hospital, he forces a terrified doctor to zap him with the defibrillator. \u201cJuice me\u201d is one of those lines that attain instant quotable status the moment it\u2019s said, like \u201cI\u2019ll be back\u201d and \u201cYippee-ki-yay, mother f***er\u201d. The public sex scene is a riot with all those people, including a busload of female Chinese students, watching in shock. Efren Ramirez, better known as Napoleon Dynamite\u2019s bff Pedro, shows up as Kaylo, friend and informant to Chev. Gay as the day is long, he provides great comic relief until- SPOILER ALERT!<\/strong>– he meets a tragic end. Such is the fate of many a comic sidekick. Country singer Dwight Yoakam (Sling Blade) also contributes great support as Doc Miles, doctor to the stars of the criminal underworld in L.A. He provides useful medical advice while flying back from Vegas.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The violence in Crank<\/strong> is crazy! Statham kicks a whole lot of ass in this one. One guy that crosses him gets his hand cut off with a meat cleaver while \u201cTurn Me Loose\u201d (by Loverboy) plays over the soundtrack. There\u2019s also a cool fight on a helicopter that continues even after both parties fall out and plunge towards the ground. In that scene, Neveldine\/Taylor uses Jefferson Starship\u2019s \u201cMiracles\u201d to nice effect. The soundtrack also includes \u201cMental Health\u201d (Quiet Riot), \u201cEverybody\u2019s Talkin\u2019\u201d (Harry Nilsson), \u201cLet\u2019s Get It On\u201d (Marvin Gaye) and \u201cKill All the White Man\u201d (NOFX).<\/p>\n

\u00a0Crank<\/strong> is funny, wild, action-packed and as insane an action film as you\u2019ll ever see. It\u2019s like Speed without the bus. Hell, this movie is ON speed! I wish more action flicks were made with this much reckless abandon. Yes, the plot is idiotic. The people in it are cartoonish. His girlfriend Eve is a textbook dumb blonde. Kaylo is a total gay stereotype; all that\u2019s missing is the limp wrist. Ricky is a stereotypical Latino gangster. If Crank<\/strong> wasn\u2019t so OTT, it might be offensive. But it is, so it\u2019s not. This is the kind of movie you watch with your brain in the OFF mode. It\u2019s mindless in the best possible way.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Crank (2006)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Lionsgate\/Action\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 87 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (strong bloody violence, pervasive language, sexual content, nudity, drug use)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Neveldine\/Taylor\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Neveldine\/Taylor\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Paul Haslinger\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Adam Biddle\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: September 1, 2006 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Jason Statham, Amy Smart, Jose Pablo Cantillo, Efren Ramirez, Dwight Yoakam, Carlos Sanz, Reno Wilson, Edi Gathegi, Glenn Howerton, Jay […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12479,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-kick-ass-actioners"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Crank-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12395"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12395\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12481,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12395\/revisions\/12481"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}