What I Rented - Crank

I wanted to like Crank. You’ve got to believe me. I enjoy a mindless action film as much as the next guy, and the premise for this film sounded great – Jason Statham gets poisoned and has to keep his adrenaline level up or else he dies, and he’s not ready to die until he gets the guys who killed him! I moderately enjoyed Jason Statham’s Transporter flicks, so I was hoping for a good ride, but as Crank kept spinning its wheels, a shocking thought entered my head…..”wow, I hate this movie.”

The biggest problem with Crank is that while the premise is intriguing it also helps to dig the film’s grave. This has to be one of the most repetitive movies I’ve ever seen. Every five minutes or so, Statham starts slowing down, and starts dying, so he has to do something morally shocking to get his adrenaline back up. At first it’s funny and mildly exhilarating watching Statham sink into a pool of drugs, violence, and sex. But, once you know the joke it stops becoming funny. I get it! He has to do something crazy to stay alive.

This could work if Crank was interested in building momentum, but it wants to be exciting for every single minute of its running time. The ending has the same level of excitement as the beginning. It’s like babysitting a kid with ADHD who wants to show you how amazing he is by doing lots of stupid things for an hour and a half. At first it’s kind of amusing, but it gets annoying really fast.

I liked a few things about the movie. An action scene involving a car traveling up an escalator made me laugh, and the last two minutes are great, but everything else is a horrible blur.

For a movie so interested in being exciting, it’s amazing how boring Crank truly is.

Star Rating - * out of 4