CRANK: HIGH VOLTAGE
(US, 2009, d. Mark Neveldene and Brian Taylor)
This Jason Statham movie will rank high in the list of the cinema of the preposterous.
To be momentarily fair to all concerned, they knew what they were doing. During the final credits an out-take has Statham declaring that he could hardly keep a straight face. (There are plot developments, out-takes and jokes during very long credits.)
In the original film Statham as hired assassin, Chelios, was doing something of a DOA thriller where he had been poisoned and had to chase all over LA to find an antidote. This time he falls down into an LA street, a mile down, from a helicopter. He survives only to be picked up, raced to a hospital for heart surgery (during which he is watching) – for his heart to be stolen by a would be Chinese playboy (who later turns up in the form of a disguised leering and ogling David Carradine) and replaced by an electric box. Hence the need for many scenes of his being re-charged by all kinds of electrical sources around the city. High Voltage. What follows is more than a bit of high revoltage and revolting.
The plot goes over a pretty high top of the absurd, piling one implausibility on to the other as if this were the most natural thing to do. Were they making it up as they went along, getting brain(?)waves about making each episode even more unbelievable than the previous one? Statham recharges, bashes and shoots, confronts tatooed gangs, insane Hispanics (including a severed head on wires who is still alive) and Asian criminals while trying to track down the deranged Chinese villain who seems to have stolen his heart. Amy Smart is back in order to have another public sex scene and dance as a stripper and Bai Ling is there just to show how berserk she can be. Dwight Yoakam is a deregistered heart specialist who keeps in touch with Statham by phone and is ready to replace the heart any time, anywhere!
At one stage, the action stops and a talk show flashback is inserted where the young Chelios is being interviewed by the host about his behaviour (anti-social and visualised) – and his mother is played by Spice Girl, Geri Halliwell!
Apart from enjoying themselves and showing they have a flair for moviemaking as well as popping in any device,angle or split screen when they want to, Neveldene and Taylor may have made a bet that they could outdo both Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez and grind out a 2008 version of the exploitation movie. And exploit they do, bumping up the language, violence, nudity, sexual encounter quota to prove they can do it. Or, did they want Tarantino and Rodriguez to collaborate on their next project and see if they could find an even higher top to go over?
This review must end here because the whole thing is too preposterous for words...
