Kill the headlights and put it in neutral.
Unattractive and mildly entertaining. The speed and pace of this movie are fast, but the action seems too tacked on and unbelievable to be interesting. These days, action stars need grit and dirty fingernails – and this character needs more depth. But, for action alone, you won’t be disappointed – there are plenty of twelve-on-one fight scenes with expected results. The director did a decent job of contrast with the quick and lethal delivery of Statham’s lines compared to French actor, Francois Berleand as Inspector Tarconi – whose delivery was so lethargic you just know they tacked on a whole reel of wasted film.
Speaking of wasted reels, most of the dialog of this film was redundant and pointless. The whole film could have been a half hour wordless animated graphic novel in sleek black and white – and then it might have been interesting. There are over four scenes wherein food is discussed at length in some vain attempt at realism, which fails miserably and is almost painful to watch.
The acting was miserable in most scenes, and downright pointless in several. Saved only by evil bad guy numero uno, Mr. Johnson played by Prison Break’s Robert Knepper – he seemed genuine in scenes where he lost control, while attempting, in vain, to be in complete control throughout his inane mission.
And, how many more movies can Jason Statham star in where he has to keep moving or die? I liked it the first time I saw it, or didn’t actually, when it was called Crank. I just saw that they are already shooting for a release date in 2009 for Crank 2 – is there no end?
This film irked me because they used that cheesy speed motion cinematography from 60s era Love Bug movies to show some of the car chases in super fast speed. Aren’t we passed that now, and if we aren’t, do a better job at fooling us, please. The “message” of this movie was the final straw for me; the evil company hell bent on dumping toxic waste goes through this elaborate scheme to dump it in Eastern Europe – when everyone knows they would really just move on to the next nation that would actually accept their bribes.
The only thing that could have saved this movie was some gratuitous sex. If you are going to see it for that reason alone, connect the dots on Natalya Rudakova’s face as the damsel, doofus in distress Valentina who is so annoying and weak you almost root for the bad guy at the end – just to end her pointless direction, and realize Ukranian women are not like the Russians – they don’t bare more than ankle bones and peticoats, apparently. I was sitting next to a lesbian who sighed heavily when the “sex scene” was over – we both looked at each other, like, that was it? Yes, that was it, and please heed my advice, save your $10- $12 bucks and don’t even rent this one in some vague attempt to appear cool, as only teens and speed freaks will like this spoon fed tripe.
