DVDFile

Lionsgate Home Entertainment / 2006 / 87 Minutes / R
Street Date: January 9, 2007

At a time when many film reviewers decry the cliché of the chase as an overused and simplistic plot element that has crept into far too many movies, we’re offered a remarkably entertaining film that is essentially one never-ending chase.  Ah, but this state of affairs has a perfectly good explanation.  The film’s clever premise forces a choice on the protagonist: keep moving at a pace that would kill a lesser man or slow down and die.  And for an entire film, he’s propelled by adrenaline.

Jason Statham plays Chev, a professional assassin in the employ of some very nasty folks.  In fact, they are so nasty that when Chev dissatisfies them, he’s targeted for assassination and his death isn’t to be clean and quick.  A brutal thug named Verona (Jose Pablo Cantillo) injects him with a poison that binds to adrenaline receptors and eventually causes the victim to die an uncomfortable and disorienting death.  Verona wants Chev to know precisely what’s coming.  After injecting Chev asleep in his apartment bed, Verona leaves behind a disc with a video message, a laughing, taunting, inflammatory kiss of death.  Verona is very open about what he’s done to Chev; he even includes some footage of the fatal injection being administered (never mind that Chev wasn’t awakened by the sensation of being stabbed with a hypodermic needle).  Verona gleefully explains that Chev has perhaps an hour to live.  What Verona hadn’t anticipated is that his gloating causes Chev to become enraged; he’s so furious that he temporarily compensates for the poison’s effect by pumping excess adrenaline into his bloodstream.  Chev determines that he won’t go down without a fight; he’ll try to find a cure but whether he survives or not, he must find Verona and kill him.

Chev calls Doc Miles (Dwight Yoakam), a physician with questionable ethics and large appetites.  Chev is his best customer; it was necessary for Miles to patch him up on more than one occasion, an occupational hazard.  Alas, Miles is in Las Vegas, feeding some of those appetites.  After Chev describes what happened to him, Miles agrees to fly back immediately for his most valued patient.  He instructs Chev to inject himself with epinephrine, an artificial form of adrenaline, to stay alive until he can return to his office.

And so begins a frantic race against time.  Chev seeks the epinephrine, but takes huge risks to stimulate his adrenal gland.  He goes on a rampage through Los Angeles, racing through the city, taking what he needs at gunpoint, simultaneously trying to find and kill Verona while he pumps himself full of medications to keep himself going.  The only sanity in his life is Eve (Amy Smart), a pretty but somewhat imperceptive young woman.  Chev is very much in love with her, and he’s kept hidden the nature of his work.  Eve may very well be the only good thing that ever came into his life; he doesn’t want to risk losing her.  But Verona knows of Eve, and in Chev’s desperation and with an imminent threat on her life, he will reveal that he is not as he seemed.

This is merely the setup for a non-stop, utterly frenetic hour and a half of death, destruction, remarkable stunts, and humor.  Yes, humor; this is a very dark comedy.  Very dark.  One can’t help noticing the outrageousness of Chev’s racing around downtown L.A. dressed in little more than a hospital gown open at the back, public sex, the fate of a bird happily ensconced in its cage, and Tarantino-like exaggerated bloody violence.  And I can’t possibly hint about the last half second of the film, a truly enigmatic ending.  This is not a film to be taken seriously (one sequence would have required a helicopter to climb to 17,000 feet, utterly impractical); it’s a film simply to be experienced.

There are many bizarre and unique shots that had me wondering how they were done.  The supplements revealed that one of the two first-time feature film director-screenwriter-camera operators, Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, is an accomplished roller-blader.  And the film was shot in 1080p24 high definition.  Neveldine would strap a 60-pound rig of control electronics, batteries, and hard dive to his back, handhold the HD camera, and roller-blade to follow the action.  He’d take great risks, like being pulled behind a motorcycle at 40 miles per hour.  He would follow a running Statham through the narrow corridors of a building or blade down a street as Statham runs on the sidewalk.  This is Gorilla filmmaking on an entirely new level. 

To up the ante, the filmmakers prefer in-camera stunts and effects.  The film was made with virtually no green screen work, deprecatingly characterized by the pair as the George Lucas style of filmmaking.  The product of these efforts is a film with remarkable energy.  As becomes even clearer in the commentary and featurettes, these two filmmakers have delightfully irreverent senses of humor.  Their off-center sensibilities infuse the film with wit.  And the performances by each performer - Stathan, Smart, and Cantillo in particular - drive the film forward.  I was totally entertained.

The Video: How Does The Disc Look?

What could be more natural than presenting a film shot in 1080p24 high definition on a high definition disc.  The transfer is excellent, but not perfect.  The filmmakers play with the various camera parameters: the electronic equivalent of shutter speed; contrast; color depth; saturation; frame speed . . . The film is as intriguing to experience visually as the story line is compelling.  Small object detail is outstanding.  Finely grained textures are excellent.  Color accuracy based on flesh tones and copious quantities of blood is first-rate.  The dynamic range is well conveyed, with no crush on either end of the video dynamic range.  My only nitpick is that from time to time I became aware of some very minor edge halos; fortunately, I had to look for them to spot them on an eight-foot wide screen.  So I doubt that many would be aware of them.  This is a highly stylized film that’s simply fun to watch.

The Audio: How Does The Disc Sound?

There are two 6.1 mixes on this disc, an uncompressed PCM track and Dolby Digital 5.1 EX.  I don’t think there’s any doubt which one I enjoyed.  The surrounds completely envelop the viewer with discrete sounds and pans, action elements, and environmental sounds.  EX decoding is a must.  The track is highly dynamic, with visceral gunshots and a sphincter-stimulating bottom end.  Sound effects are impressive in their sonic impact.  The spoken word remains utterly clear throughout, even in the presence of what I found to be extremely irritating, head-banging musical underscoring.

The audio is supported by English and Spanish subtitles.

Supplements: What Goodies Are There?

We begin with the Crank’d Out Movie Mode, the by-now-familiar audio/video commentary mode found on some high definition discs.  The directors dominate, but other participants appear from time to time, like cinematographer Biddle or star Statham.  You’ll see interviews, monologs, and behind-the-scenes footage in a window occupying one of several positions on the screen.  Sometimes the commentary falls back on the familiar ground of audio only.  I immediately took a liking to Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor.  I enjoyed their senses of humor: without ego, cheeky, and very dry.  They are genuinely entertaining as they inform the viewer about the making of the film.  And from time to time, a beating heart icon will appear onscreen accompanied by the rather odd sound of Chev’s cell phone ring.  While visible, click on your remote’s enter or select button and you’ll be transported via seamless branching to a narration-free behind-the-scenes featurette that’s related to the current film sequence; they range in runtime from a minute or so to perhaps seven or eight.  Every traditional topic found in good commentaries is here, but it’s presented with humor and ease.

All the supplements are presented in HD at various levels of quality; some footage looks like it is upconverted from 480p.  Next we have a series of featurettes.

In Pushing Crank (6:21), writers/directors Mark Neneldine and Brian Taylor and executive producer Peter Block describe the marketing effort and the web-based marketing effort in particular.  This is a wonderful example of the power of the Internet.  It’s fun and a very different approach than I’ve seen on any other disc.  The filmmakers tapped into the largest user-generated sites.  I had no idea that those sites had their own stars; it’s like another world.  Jason Statham even volunteered video segments to some Web submitters.  This was as grass roots a campaign as I can imagine.

In The Stunts of Crank (17:24), stunt coordinator Darrin Prescott, director of photography Adam Biddle, Neneldine, Taylor, Block, and producer Richard Wright explain how there wasn’t much green screen work shot for the film.  As I already mentioned, the filmmakers prefer in-camera techniques.  Statham and Jose Pablo Cantillo talk about the helicopter gag, harnessed but actually hanging out the side of the aircraft in flight.  I found it fascinating that the filmmakers tapped into the actors’ egos to get them to do what seems to be outrageous things.  “We can get a stunt double to do the gag, if you’re a pussy.”  Statham also did an impressive descender rig gag and several bike stunts.  Amazing behind-the-scenes footage reveals the nature of the risks.  Statham’s reactions during some of the gags are priceless.

During Shooting Crank (7:10), Wright, Block, Biddle, and digital imaging engineer Nick Theodorakis talk about shooting in 1080p24.  It’s explained that there are fifteen different parameters that can be manipulated on-set, so the electronic shutter speed, sharpness, color, contrast, and more can all be processed as the images are captured.  They differentiate film from HD, and how it affects the lighting design.  Of particular interest is the behind-the-scenes footage of Neveldine shooting while on roller-blades.  Just amazing. 

By the way, I noticed that the featurettes were written and produced by Cliff Stephenson.  Those of you who’ve been with us for a long time know that a Cliff Stephenson used to be one of our reviewers.  Unfortunately, the email address I have for Cliff is no longer valid, so I couldn’t verify if the writer/producer is our Cliff.  Cliff, if you’re out there, please email to let me know. 

Next, we have Crank @ ComicCon (11:20), a panel discussion with the writers/directors, Statham, and Efren Ramirez (who plays Chev’s loyal friend).  I was struck by Statham’s interest in action and risk; it’s almost like he’s an adrenaline junky, as ironic as that may be.  It’s here that it’s made clear that this is the directors’ first feature film experience.  Parallels are made between the shoot and the story.  There was so little money that the cast and crew had to keep moving at a breakneck pace or the production would have failed.  Much of the short has the panel members answering questions from the audience.  Perhaps to avoid collecting releases or perhaps to save runtime, the questions are displayed as text rather than showing the questioner.  I must acknowledge that the few questions culled for this featurette are rather intelligent.  Informative.

More Stories from Crank (25:18 with the handy Play All option), gives the directors, Stathan, Ramirez, Biddle, and Cantillo the opportunity to offer additional quips and anecdotes that didn’t fit within the context of the other featurettes.  The directors’ very dry sense of humor comes through.  For that matter, almost everyone is very entertaining.  I’d have to say that I enjoyed more laughs during this extra than I usually find in a typical blooper reel.  Some talk about their process.  Some talk about the filming experience.  All are worth watching

Which leaves Also From Lionsgate (2:17), essentially a promo for Lionsgate Blu-ray Discs.

The 88-minute film is organized into sixteen chapters.

Final Thoughts

This is a terrific action film punctuated with darkly droll humor, amazing stunts, and an exhausting pace.  The transfer is excellent, the audio superb, and the generous supplements both entertaining and informative.  Highly recommended.  (We’ve requested the DVD edition and as soon as we receive it, we hope to have that review up for you.)


Here’s a note about the apparent duplicate Buy Guide.  Our I.T. people are hard at work on a large project and have not yet had the time to modify the underlying site database formatting code to accommodate the new 0-to-10 rating scales.  So until they do, for HD on disc, I’ll insert this note and a Buy Guide at the end of the review text and leave the conventional 0-to-5 Buy Guide blank.