Monday, January 08, 2007
DVD Review: Crank
Lions Gate Films and Lakeshore Entertainment
present a Neveldine/Taylor film
Starring Jason Statham Amy Smart Jose Pablo Castillo
and Dwight Yoakam
Music by Paul Haslinger Edited by Brian Berdan
Cinematography by Adam Biddle
Produced by Michael Davis Gary Lucchesi Tom Rosenberg
Skip Williamson Richard Wright
Written and Directed by Brian Neveldine and Mark Taylor
Being honest, I haven't seen anything that I'd call a great action movie for a while, not since 2001 and Christophe Gans' Brotherhood of the Wolf, or perhaps Man on Fire, although I don’t really see that as an action movie. Anyway, following my teens, I drifted away from the genre, both expanding my horizons with other kinds of film but also after a failure to find anything mind-blowingly great as something like Predator, Die Hard, or the still-king of action movies, Raiders of the Lost Ark. Every year, dozens and dozens of action flicks came my way, and all failed to arouse anything.
Thank fuck for Crank.
Crank tells the story of probably the most most awesome-monikered protagonist since, well, Indiana Jones. Chev Chelios is an L.A. hitman, and has just made a hit on a Korean crime boss, a hit which - whilst being authorised by his employer - has just taken his life. You see, Chev has been poisoned with a "beijing cocktail" and while he knows he's done for, he's looking to stay alive just long enough to seek his revenge against his murderer. And the only way to do that is to keep up his adrenaline, which slows the poison down. And the only way to do that is to punch everything in his way, steal as many cars as possible, achieve at least one act of public copulation, and generally do a lot of insane things with a refreshing lack of any moral consequence.
As you can tell from the above description Crank is awesome. But it's not only the best action movie in a while, it's also the greatest video game adaptation ever made. To clarify, no, there is no actual specific game that Crank was based on. But it matters not. For all intents and purposes, this is Grand Theft Auto: The Motion Picture. This is not a "it's so thin and goes to set-piece to set-piece" type criticism. This is the filmmakers (debutants Brian Taylor and Mark Neveldine) intentionally structuring the film like a game, and providing all the trimmings that would you expect from that. The only thing that differs is that the only task we have as the audience is to sit back and enjoy. And to try not to vomit from laughing too hard.
That's one brilliant thing about Crank that endears it to me so much. It's absolutely fucking hilarious, and the comment about vomiting comes from personal experience, as after viewing the picture for the first time, I was gagging and retching by the end because I could just not stop laughing. You know the cliche "I laughed so hard it hurt"? Well that happened with Crank.
I'm all for seriousness in films, and the lack of seriousness in cinema is something I can often be found lamenting, usually referencing modern horror. But seriousness would be completely out of place in Crank as much as a twenty-minute graphic rape scene would be in Citizen Kane. This flick is as popcorn as you can get, a blisteringly fast - and short at 80 minutes - ride intent only on ensuring you have as much fun as possible. While I've heard quotes say this is a great "turn your brain off" action flick, turning your brain off during Crank would take away half of the fun of the film. This flick is meta for the Playstation generation.
And as I mentioned earlier, the directors know it, and this is directly communicated by the opening credits and the title, which as you can see at the top, is rendered like a video game screen from the SNES (Super Nintendo Entertainment System for the young'uns here). I've always looked at the opening credits as a sort of ante-chamber for the film, if that makes sense, an effective way to convey the atmosphere of the film and prepare the audience for what's ahead. Some times that's true, other times it's just an excuse to play the movie's theme song over some pretty images. Crank's titles fit into the first example, the game-esque screens juxtaposed with a blast of heavy metal on the soundtrack. I'm glad they didn't use "Ace of Spades," that would have just been too much.
As such, Chev runs through the game/film, well, stealing vehicles and punching and shooting people. Which is great fun, and leads to so many hilarious scenes of ultra-violence, most of which revolve around Chev’s adrenaline problem, which leads into another great way Neveldine and Taylor have integrated the movie with the world of the video game: power-ups. So much of the film is obsessed with Chev getting the energy he needs, whether by beating people up (levelling up!) or by injecting, snorting, and electric shocking. It’s really no different than Mario and his mushrooms (snigger) or Mike Haggar picking up a turkey.
Crank juxtaposes all this mayhem with a subplot involving his girlfriend that sounds clichéd (girl doesn’t know that boy is hitman) but which works absolutely beautifully in a multitude of ways, including one scene in Chinatown that includes one of the funniest shots I’ve ever seen. Amy Smart doesn’t honestly have that much to do except panic and be hot, and she does both of those exceptionally well. The supporting cast are all pretty great, with the standout being country star Dwight Yoakam as Chev’s doctor, who spends 90% of the film on the phone with him dispensing advice on how to stop the poison, to the amusement of the airport patrons around him.
Statham himself is amazing, and very, very funny. He takes the average action hero – or in this case anti-hero – and creates this scared, vulnerable, manic and likeable character and infuses him with, well, a lot of violent slapstick humour. A lot of the comedy is purely visual, and Statham takes to it like a duck to water, kind of like Buster Keaton crossed with Sonic the Hedgehog. But when the film – and his character – needs to be brutal, he performs it unflinchingly. For those who are faint of heart and/or pregnant, be warned: this is a very violent movie that has absolutely no morals whatsoever. There are no doubt some people who saw the film and took offence to a lot of it, and I’ll be honest, there was one moment which stands out to me as incredibly brave for a Hollywood flick, but that also made me flinch for a split second, which I think is certainly the point. Like some video games which have become famous in the media for inspiring real-life violence, Crank is a huge over-exuberant examination of not only what filmmakers can get away with, but also how the audience reacts when we place a person that is one of the main causes of this behaviour as our “hero.”
Technically, the film is excellent. Shot on digital video, the film in many ways has the feeling of Tony Scott’s recent experimental pictures, the aforementioned Man On Fire and Domino, especially in the editing. There’s a lot of freeze framing, and some interesting work with subtitles and words in general, especially that one term that hates women (no, not “jumpsuit”). The direction is incredibly confident, as is the writing, and they squeeze every last drop out of the concept, but never overrun it. According to IMDB, there was an original music score, but I’ll be honest, I can’t remember anything but loud heavy metal.
As for the DVD itself, well, I can’t say exactly. You see, being that I live in the UK, I managed to pick it up a week early compared to the States, but as a trade-off, there is very little on the disc. Being that we’re tea fiends with bad teeth constantly shouting “You... made me miss!” at each other, we always seem to get the shaft when it comes to DVDs, and Crank is no exception. However, let’s get through the technical stuff first.
The picture is amazing, and the sound is great. It could’ve done with a DTS track, but at the end of the day, the Dolby Digital 5.1 performs exceptionally. And then there are the extras. Sorry, extra. Yes, all we get is the trailer. I don’t mind that too much, because I love trailers and see too many discs without them, but there’s very little else, apart from two trailers at the start of the disc advertising Hot Fuzz and Smokin’ Aces, both of which look great by the way. However, if you live in Bush Country, I believe you get a commentary and behind the scenes stuff. Bastards.
The art is terrible. I remember the teaser poster that had a picture of Statham’s (well, perhaps a hand double’s) arm with the title raised on the inside of the arm like veins. That was awesome. This is generic DTV shit, with a picture of vengeful Statham on the cover with the obligatory two pistols. It also has the terrible DTV tagling, “Poison in his veins, Vengeance in his heart.” Give me a fucking break.
But that doesn’t really matter. Espousing Hollywood’s OTT mantra while ridiculing it at the same time, Crank is, to put it bluntly, fucking amazing. Buy it. Now.
9 and a half Haitians out of 10
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Labels: DVD Reviews
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CRANK is truly phenomenal. Statham should win awards for this movie. I saw it last night, and my heart is still racing. Where did these guys (Neveldine/Taylor???) come from?