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Release Date: September 1, 2006

Let me be completely honest with you. I wanted to like Crank. I wanted to love Crank. I wanted Crank to be so awesome that I’d walk out of the theatre, go straight to the bank, get out $20 and wait to buy it on DVD. In continuing with the honesty, I will not be buying Crank on DVD and will more likely be buying a 30-pack of beer.

Crank is the story of a retiring hitman (do any hitman ever stay in the biz?) who’s been injected with some “Chinese shit,” as its often called, that will die if he stops moving. A solid premise if I ever heard one. Our main man is Chev Chelios – a delightfully deranged, constantly cool, easily enraged, hot-shot hitman who must maneuver around all sorts of slimy bullet shooting baddies (Nine instances of alliteration in honor of that silly name of his).

The movie is fast paced and never slows down and neither does the camera. I was personally taken immediately out of the film with it’s hyped up crack-induced editing and post-production, especially in the first 10 minutes. Imagine Snatch to see it done correctly, or recall House of the Dead to see it done poorly. The practical effects are sweet, the blood and bullets are nice. The CGI parts are few and far between, but you’ll notice every one of them because of how laughable they are.

That’s the movie in its entirety. It’s fast, there’s action, there’s blood, there’s sex, but no substance. It’s hard for me to put my finger exactly on what wasn’t working, but I didn’t care for the movie. Not even in a “where will it go next?” type manner. It wants to be as hard as Grand Theft Auto or recall the awesomeness that was a 1980s action film, but unlike the 1980s postchild action film, Commando, this film never engages the audience with anything other then by screaming “Look at how outrageous we are trying to be!” If you liked Paul Walker’s Running Scared, maybe give it a shot. Maybe. Probably not.

When it comes down to it, Crank isn’t a very good movie. It’s not worth your money to catch it in theaters. Maybe Netflix it, but only if you can’t look away from car accidents. Jason Statham is still cool and I wish him the best. I also wish I had seen something else.

Final Grade: C-

The Upside: Statham is a badass, the Chinatown sex is memorable, and there’s enough bullets fired to cause a shortage in brass production for a year to come.

The Downside: No plot and no real reason to care about the outcome and nothing to be offered other than crazy action scenarios done for no reason other than to have done them.

On the side: Crank made approximately $13 million in it’s first weekend.