Crank

Directed by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, Crank follows Jason Statham’s Chev Chelios as he’s forced to keep his adrenaline up after being hit with a slow-moving poison. It’s an off-the-wall premise that is, for the most part, employed to entertaining and action-packed effect by the filmmakers, as Neveldine and Taylor, armed with their own screenplay, deliver a briskly-paced, thoroughly cartoonish endeavor that’s boasts a whole host of appealingly over-the-top elements and attributes – with, especially, Adam Biddle’s frenetic cinematography and Statham’s larger-than-life performance enhancing and perpetuating the movie’s less-than-subtle sensibilities. And although Neveldine and Taylor have punctuated the proceedings with a number of memorable interludes and sequences, including a wild, unforgettable sex scene, Crank, despite its 88 minute running time, ultimately (and perhaps unsurprisingly) does progress into an exhausting, wheel-spinning third act that act that slowly-but-surely drains the viewer’s interest and attention. (The picture does recover for a compelling and completely ludicrous climax, however.) The end result is a hit-and-miss piece of work that generally lives up to the promise of its less-than-subtle setup, and yet it’s equally clear that Crank could’ve used some serious streamlining in its post-production phase.

**1/2 out of ****