Crank (film): Difference between revisions
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==Plot== |
==Plot== |
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A [[Contract Killing|professional hitman]], [[Chev Chelios]] wakes up with severe [[grogginess]] and blurred vision. After stumbling around his apartment, he discovers a [[DVD]] inscribed with the words " |
A [[Contract Killing|professional hitman]], [[Chev Chelios]] wakes up with severe [[grogginess]] and blurred vision. After stumbling around his apartment, he discovers a [[DVD]] inscribed with the words "Fuck You." Chelios puts it in his DVD player, to see that rival [[gangster]], Verona, has injected his unconscious body with a poison called the "Beijing Cocktail," claiming that it will kill him in an hour unless he can keep adrenaline coursing through his body. Chelios flies into a rage and destroys the television playing the film, then runs to his Buick Riviera and speeds through [[Los Angeles]]. In his fury, Chev notes that his grogginess has alleviated. He places several calls, first to his girlfriend Eve ([[Amy Smart]]), but she does not answer. He then calls Dr. Miles ([[Dwight Yoakam]]), in hopes of having some sort of antidote, but Miles is not even in Los Angeles at the moment. Next, he calls his informant/friend Kaylo ([[Efren Ramirez]]) to pinpoint Verona and his associates' location. |
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Chev then heads to a bar and holds a gun up to a former affiliate, Orlando, to help track down the location of Verona. Since Orlando does not know where Verona is, Chev buys [[cocaine]] from him and then attacks his friends to pump up his adrenaline. As he speeds away, several police units begin to chase him. As Chelios flees the police, Doctor Miles calls and tells him that he needs to go to the hospital and get [[epinephrine]]. During the conversation, Chev evades police by driving through an indoor mall, crashes his car on the escalator and flees in a [[taxicab|taxi]]. During the drive, he stops to rob a [[convenience store]] of [[mini-thin]]s (an over-the-counter stimulant) and [[Energy drink|caffeinated drinks]]. |
Chev then heads to a bar and holds a gun up to a former affiliate, Orlando, to help track down the location of Verona. Since Orlando does not know where Verona is, Chev buys [[cocaine]] from him and then attacks his friends to pump up his adrenaline. As he speeds away, several police units begin to chase him. As Chelios flees the police, Doctor Miles calls and tells him that he needs to go to the hospital and get [[epinephrine]]. During the conversation, Chev evades police by driving through an indoor mall, crashes his car on the escalator and flees in a [[taxicab|taxi]]. During the drive, he stops to rob a [[convenience store]] of [[mini-thin]]s (an over-the-counter stimulant) and [[Energy drink|caffeinated drinks]]. |
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Revision as of 21:50, 26 January 2009
| Crank | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Directed by | Mark Neveldine Brian Taylor |
| Written by | Mark Neveldine Brian Taylor |
| Produced by | Michael Davis Tom Rosenberg Michael Ohoven Gary Lucchesi David Rubin Skip Williamson Richard S. Wright |
| Starring | Jason Statham Amy Smart Efren Ramirez Dwight Yoakam |
| Cinematography | Adam Biddle |
| Edited by | Brian Berdan |
| Music by | Paul Haslinger |
| Distributed by | United States: Lions Gate Films United Kingdom: Universal Studios |
Release date | September 1, 2006 |
Running time | 87 min. |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $12,000,000 |
| Box office | $39,242,841 |
Crank is a 2006 action / thriller film, written and directed by both Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor. The film stars Jason Statham, Amy Smart, Efren Ramirez and Dwight Yoakam. It was released in the United States on September 1, 2006 in 2,515 theaters. The film was rated R by the MPAA for strong violence, pervasive language, sexuality, nudity and drug use.
Plot
A professional hitman, Chev Chelios wakes up with severe grogginess and blurred vision. After stumbling around his apartment, he discovers a DVD inscribed with the words "Fuck You." Chelios puts it in his DVD player, to see that rival gangster, Verona, has injected his unconscious body with a poison called the "Beijing Cocktail," claiming that it will kill him in an hour unless he can keep adrenaline coursing through his body. Chelios flies into a rage and destroys the television playing the film, then runs to his Buick Riviera and speeds through Los Angeles. In his fury, Chev notes that his grogginess has alleviated. He places several calls, first to his girlfriend Eve (Amy Smart), but she does not answer. He then calls Dr. Miles (Dwight Yoakam), in hopes of having some sort of antidote, but Miles is not even in Los Angeles at the moment. Next, he calls his informant/friend Kaylo (Efren Ramirez) to pinpoint Verona and his associates' location.
Chev then heads to a bar and holds a gun up to a former affiliate, Orlando, to help track down the location of Verona. Since Orlando does not know where Verona is, Chev buys cocaine from him and then attacks his friends to pump up his adrenaline. As he speeds away, several police units begin to chase him. As Chelios flees the police, Doctor Miles calls and tells him that he needs to go to the hospital and get epinephrine. During the conversation, Chev evades police by driving through an indoor mall, crashes his car on the escalator and flees in a taxi. During the drive, he stops to rob a convenience store of mini-thins (an over-the-counter stimulant) and caffeinated drinks.
Chev goes to the mansion of Carlito, a crime lord with whom he is affiliated. Chev jumps into the pool to talk with him, but Carlito will not help him. As he speeds off in the taxi, Kaylo calls and tells him that Verona's brother is in a particular restaurant. Chev enters the restaurant and draws Verona's brother into an alley, where Chev slices off his gun-hand with a meat cleaver. The two men wrestle with each other, and Kaylo joins in with a rolling pin. Chev's gun is defective from his dip in the pool, so he picks up the severed hand holding the gun and shoots Verona's brother, killing him. He then calls Verona, who is surprised to see that he is still alive. He pulls a necklace off of Verona's brother and tells him he is coming to kill him and his crew.
Chev then goes to the hospital, where the pharmacist refuses him epinephrine and leaves to call hospital security. A young man (Chester Bennington) nearby tells Chev that there is epinephrine in nasal spray. Chev grabs multiple boxes and begins snorting each bottle. The security begin pursuing him, so he dons a hospital gown as a disguise, which proves ineffective. At gunpoint, he demands epinephrine from several doctors and nurses pushing a gurney with a patient on it. As a nurse (Glenn Howerton) fumbles with the gurneys medicine drawers, the security follow with guns drawn. The nurse eventually finds the epinephrine and gives it to Chev. Chev then tells the nurse to use the defibrillator on him, which throws him back into the elevator behind him. After the doors close, Chev injects himself with the full vial of epinephrine although he was told to take one fifth of it. With the massive amount of epinephrine in his body, Chev begins running crazily throughout the streets of Los Angeles. Doctor Miles calls again and chastises him for using the whole syringe of epinephrine, then proceeds to ask Chev if he has the symptoms of an overdose (specifically, a raging case of priapism), to which Chev responds, "Check."
Chev soon comes to a TV store where the news reports on his rampage. A man looks at Chev, and recognizes him from the mug shot. Chev leaves the crowd and steals a police motorcycle. He performs a motorcycle stunt and crashes into a coffee shop seconds later. From there he drives to his girlfriend Eve's apartment. When he gets there, he tells her that they need to leave and she gets dressed. Chev purposely burns his left hand on the waffle iron to spike his adrenaline in which he changes into a blue Puma Tracksuit. The two leave, and Chev kills two assassins sent by Verona without Eve noticing. In a Chinatown restaurant, Chev reveals that he is actually a hitman, not a video game programmer as she thought. He tells her that he has been injected with poison, and that he did not complete his last assignment to kill the gangster Don Kim so that they could run away together. She angrily leaves the restaurant, believing that he is lying. He begins feeling weak again and asks her to have sex with him to wake him up. Eve initially fights him off, and in the course of resisting Chev rips her blouse, exposing her breast. She eventually consents, and they try to have sex. Having difficulty getting an erection in the crowd, he moves her to a newspaper dispenser, which he bends her over, and has sex with her in front of the crowd, which is both shocked and amused. In the process, he gets a phone call from Kaylo, who says that Verona is in a nearby factory. Chev abruptly leaves Eve alone at the dispenser; he kisses her goodbye and heads off to meet up with Kaylo.
He jumps into a taxi driven by a Haitian (Edi Gathegi), who offers him a special concoction which enables him to rest before he gets to the factory. Once Chev gets there, he discovers that Kaylo has been suffocated by affiliates of Carlito. They tell him that he is embarrassing his former employer and should die quietly. Suddenly, Eve appears from an elevator. A gunfight erupts and Chev quickly kills three of the men, but is lightly wounded as he flees to an elevator. Chev and Eve run throughout the factory and he sneaks up behind a thug and shoves his hand into a sewing machine. They escape to her car, with two 96 Impalas driven by the thugs in hot pursuit. Now believing his story, Eve performs fellatio on Chev to keep him going. At the same time, Chev manages to kill the thugs in a rolling gun battle, then receives a call from Doctor Miles, who is back in town. At the doctor's office, Miles treats Chev, but tells him that due to his overdosing on epinephrine, his condition is irrevocably fatal. Preferring to die fighting for revenge, Chev calls Verona and they set up a meeting to exchange his brother's necklace for the antidote.
On the floor of the meeting, Verona's thugs disarm him and escort him to an open-air patio. Verona awaits him, along with Carlito, who has joined forces with him. Chelios rides up to the top floor in an elevator, occupied also by an uninvolved Asian man (Toshi Toda). The man looks at Chelios and a strange dream-like sequence occurs when he begins speaking in different voices to Chev, including Verona, Kaylo, Carlito, his own mother, and even himself. Chev reveals to himself in this sequence that he is an adrenaline junkie and that that is the cause of his current situation. He never knew when to stop. Eventually, after his moment of drug-induced clarity, he arrives to the top of the building.
Chev asks for the antidote and Carlito informs him he only has more of the poison, and orders the guards to hold him down. Chev pulls out his finger in the shape of a gun and aims it at Verona and Carlito. As they laugh at him, he points it at a thug and mimes pulling the trigger. The bodyguard falls over with a gunshot to the forehead. Verona and Carlito are shocked to see Don Kim and his armed thugs standing behind Chev.
The two gangs begin shooting each other and Chev chases after Verona. Carlito boards his helicopter to escape the gunfight. Chev, Verona and Carlito grapple on the helicopter. Verona injects more poison into Chev, then shoots Carlito and takes his place on the helicopter. As it lifts off, Chev dangles out of the helicopter, pulling at Verona's leg. High above the city, Chev finally pulls Verona out of the helicopter and both of them plummet through the air. Chev snaps Verona's neck, plummets away from the corpse and calls Eve's answering machine to apologize that he will not be returning to her. After hanging up, his body smashes down onto a car and bounces extravagantly high and far before smacking into the pavement his face inches from the camera. His nostrils flare slightly in what appears to be breath, then he blinks once. Seconds before end credits begin to roll, two faint, but steady, heartbeats, can be heard.
Cast
- Jason Statham as Chev Chelios
- Amy Smart as Eve
- Jose Pablo Cantillo as Ricky Verona
- Efren Ramirez as Kaylo
- Dwight Yoakam as Doc Miles
- Carlos Sanz as Carlito
- Reno Wilson as Orlando
Themes
The film's plot and action are reminiscent of video games, and the film makes frequent references to video arcade games. The opening credits feature 1980s-style video game graphics and include an arcade-style highscore screen, with the first four entries being FUC, YOU, ASS, HOL in that order. After the end credits, a video game sequence shows Chev running around and shooting gangsters, then dying in the street. A blinking message then reads, "Insert coin to continue. (press 5)," "5" is the default key used to insert coins in the MAME emulator. Various scenes in the film show images or characters from the video game Berzerk, a classic arcade game with the grim reputation as one of the few games where a person has died from heart problems while playing it.[citation needed] At least one bathroom in the movie has the green stick figure character from Berzerk on it. Right before Don Kim's gang shoots out Verona and Carlito's bodyguards, you can hear Chev saying 'Presto." When Verona gets the final call from Chev about where to meet, it can be seen that the guy sitting next to him is playing Berzerk. Amy Smart's character Eve believes Chev to be a video game programmer before he confesses that he is a hitman.
Film critic Brian Orndorf from FilmJerk.com called Crank "The latest stab by Hollywood to cash in on the violent video game craze".[2]
Box office
On its first day of release, Crank earned $3.3 million, the day's highest earnings. In the film's first weekend, it earned $13 million, putting it at second place behind Invincible which earned $15.2 million. The film grossed $27,838,408 at the domestic box office, with another $11,404,413 in foreign box offices, for worldwide receipts of $39,242,821.[3]
Reviews for Crank were mixed, but generally positive. It currently holds a 60% "fresh" rating on Rottentomatoes.
Promotion
Directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, along with actors Jason Statham and Efren Ramirez, appeared at the 2006 Comic-Con Convention in San Diego, California. The panel showed a short clip and promoted the film, mentioning that it was shot in HD and that no wires or CGI were used for the stunt scenes.[4]
The filmmakers also made extensive use of web advertisement to promote the film. Lions Gate Films bought a featured spot on the home page of YouTube and paid several of its well-known members to advertise. Independently, Mark Neveldine, Brian Taylor and Efren Ramirez appear in a vlog by a user known as biostudentgirl on YouTube as well as her personal site.
Soundtrack
DVD
The Crank DVD has been released by Lionsgate Home Entertainment on January 9, 2007. The DVD is available in separate anamorphic widescreen and fullscreen editions, each with Dolby Digital 5.1 and 2.0 tracks. The bonus materials includes running cast and crew audio commentary, behind-the-scenes footage, gags, maps, making-of insights, and interviews with the cast. These features are all accessible via the "Crank'd Out Mode" - a pop-up window feature that allows access to the extras without ever leaving the film. The DVD also includes a "family friendly" audio replacement, in which the film is dubbed over as it would appear on a television broadcast. However, the violence, language subtitles, and nudity are still the same.
The Region 2 version of the DVD was released December 26, 2006, but it has no special features.
Sequel
References
- ^ "Movieweb.com" (PDF). Lionsgate:Crank. Retrieved September 16.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help); Unknown parameter|accessyear=ignored (|access-date=suggested) (help) - ^ FilmJerk.com - Reviews - Crank
- ^ Box Office Mojo - Crank
- ^ CON: Lionsgate panel
