Crank

Starring: Jason Statham, Amy Smart, & Jose Cantillo

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Chev Chelios is arguably Jason Statham's best known character and Crank is arguably his best known film, but it is far from his best film. Chev Chelios (Statham) is a gun for hire, who will work for anyone who can pay him. One day he wakes up in a daze and finds a video in which a former employer tells him, that he poisoned him with a rare adrenaline inhibitor, which will kill him in a few hours. Chelios goes out seeking revenge, but must keep his adrenaline pumping, in order to slow the poison down. It's a strange story, but as usual, Statham is terrific, playing his most extreme character. Chelios is a crazy man who goes to extremes, however that's all this film has to offer. Non-stop action can sometimes be fun, but when it's the same thing repeating over and over again for 90 minutes, even the biggest action fan gets tired of it. Statham is paired with Amy Smart who starred in my favorite movie of all-time, The Butterfly Effect, and surprisingly she was terrible! She plays Chelios's girlfriend, a girl who is as dumb as dirt and who follows this crazy man blindly through the city on his hunt for revenge. Crank has some humor and a terrific leading man, but unfortunately, there isn't much of story. Besides Statham's well known one-liners and his ridiculous moves, there is really nothing to see here. Crank is one of those films that starts out strong and then just never goes anywhere. Having seen a lot of Statham's movies lately, I was hoping his best known film would be his most exciting, but it wasn't. It's the same scene repeated many times over, and I was tired of it after a half hour.