Crank (2006)
Directed by Brian Taylor
Chev Chelios, a hit man wanting to go straight, lets his latest target slip away. Then he awakes the next morning to a phone call that informs him he has been poisoned and has only an hour to live unless he keeps adrenaline coursing through his body while he searches for an antidote.
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14 films that influenced Crank
What critics say influenced Crank
A crotch-first fusion of Rudolph Maté's D.O.A. and "Grand Theft Auto", it defines that genre of video game-inspired non-sequitur mayhem indicated by epileptic edits, CGI-aided wire-fu, and John Woo gunplay by offering a high concept (hero is dying of a rare Chinese toxin that can be held in abeyance only with a steady infusion of adrenaline) as its narrative/excuse to exist.
Short time (and as it happens, Crank is a lot like Dabney Coleman's surprisingly funny Short Time, too) inspiring sentimentality in the ol' so-and-so, Chev finds time in his mad dash to pick up dim-bulb girlfriend Eve (an unbelievably hot Amy Smart), who's of course amenable to a couple of public displays of affection.
Like a cross between "D.O.A." and "Speed" with a little bit of "Oldboy" and Michael Douglas' "Falling Down" thrown in for good measure, the directorial debut of commercial directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor is certainly not like the action movies we see every year.
Crank can’t match the sustained conceptual ingenuity of its inspirations, namely Speed and D.O.A.—hell, I’m not even sure if its makers could successfully spell D.O.A.—but the amount of stylish carnage on display generates its own cheerfully moronic slipstream.
It’s kind of like D.O.A. meets Speed, only instead of a bus it’s Statham’s one-man wrecking crew that has to keep moving.
The plot of the action/revenge-thriller "Crank" is very similar to the 1994 hit "Speed."
Their intent is an updated "Speed," with star Jason Statham ("The Transporter") replacing both Keanu Reeves and the bus.
It seems like more of a movie pitch (D.O.A. meets Speed) than a movie, but Crank gets by on a unique kind of absurd, deadpan humor in which the most implausible stuff cheerfully happens anyway.
It's so stupid, often intentionally so, that it's downright brilliant, as when the stricken Chev barrels across a bridge atop a stolen LAPD motorcycle wearing nothing but some hospital johnnies and a smile while Nilsson's Midnight Cowboy theme, "Everybody's Talkin'," counterpoints the whole absurd (and absurdly entertaining) affair.
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For those looking for something similar, how about the little-seen 1994 action/comedy The Chase, with Charlie Sheen and Kristy Swanson?
For a generation of teens and twentysomethings popping Ritalin like Tic Tacs and guzzling Red Bull like mother's milk, a quaint little movie like "Run Lola Run" must feel as slow as Tarkovsky or Jarmusch.
Imagine Run Lola Run without the artsy pretension.
Marrying the concept of Rudolph Mate's 1950 noir “D.O.A.” -- remade in 1988 starring Dennis Quaid -- to the fast-moving, postmodern style of “Run Lola Run” might seem creative, but “Crank” is more irritating than inventive.
The best of the cast plays against type: Efren Ramirez (Pedro in Napoleon Dynamite ) is a flaming club kid while Dwight Yoakam ( Sling Blade ) is a sleazy mob doc.
And yet my hatred for Doyle must be viewed as a positive, because it shows what a stellar job the script, which won the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar, did of forging a truly detestable character, and also how great Yoakam is in the role, especially bearing in mind this was one of Yoakam’s first roles, and he’s always been better known for his music career than his acting, with this, Panic Room and the Crank movies being all I can recall him in.
Like a cross between "D.O.A." and "Speed" with a little bit of "Oldboy" and Michael Douglas' "Falling Down" thrown in for good measure, the directorial debut of commercial directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor is certainly not like the action movies we see every year.
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Creative cinematography that is similar to the style of Tony Scott (Man on Fire, Domino).
From a technical perspective, try to imagine a Tony Scott film, like Domino for instance, with all its distracting tics and affectations.
Creative cinematography that is similar to the style of Tony Scott (Man on Fire, Domino).