So many unanswered questions...
- Review By:
- tpb
- Date:
- October 11, 2009
- Movie:
- crank
- Director:
- Mark Neveldine
- Released:
- 2006
- Good Guy:
- Chev Chelios
- Played By:
- Jason Statham
- Bad Guy:
- Ricky Verona
- Played By:
- Jose Pablo Cantillo
- MPAA Rating:
- R
- Family Friendly Ages:
- Not for kids
Movies can be evaluated on so many levels. The subjectivity of likeability and interests and what one gleans from a film can evoke so much in one and so little in another. Sometimes it's not so much what one sees, as what one doesn't that creates for the viewer his or her memorable film-going moments. Many of the best films I've ever seen leave me with more questions than answers. This is certainly the case with Crank. I began right away to ruminate on these questions like koans... imponderables... meditative nuggets... strewn across the path that lay between the couch and the tv; between myself and the action; between my reality and the reality of Jason Statham and his odd cadre of filmmakers. They were simple questions, yet I knew that no matter how long I watched, or how long I contemplated, the answers were simply not going to present themselves to me. This was a film that could only create speculation, not resolve conundrum.
And so, I am left with questions and no answers. For what does one say about such preposterous, over-the-top, nonsense rife with implausibility, juvenile humor, bad dialogue, and horrific character development? Is this plot so ridiculous it seems to have no anchor to reality or even its own previous events? Is the gratuitous violence necessary only to provoke the viewer rather than propel the storyline? Is it the job of every actor in this movie who manages to work himself or herself into any frame to present a mini-workshop on bad acting and what NOT to do when the cameras are rolling?
Is this film simply groundbreaking in its development of a revolutionary film techinque that I can only assume the filmmakers refer to as The POB (Point of Boob) shot? Was their goal to make every POB shot wearisome so that the boobs themselves lost all meaning and allure after the first 15 minutes? Were the public sex scenes necessary? Were the cheering crowds who watched the public sex scenes used as accents to these displays, or as something else... something stupid, perhaps?
There are so many more, but it's these final two that push me solidly over the edge: 1) How is that 15 bad guys with machines guns can spray a hail of bullets simulaneously at one good guy twenty feet away (which brings me to another one... is Chev Chelios a good guy?) and not even so much as nick his shirt flapping in the breeze? And 2) How can one man who has been poisoned, beaten to within an inch of his life, poisoned again (with the same poison that didn't kill him the first time, mind you), and beaten some more, fall 15 or 20,000 feet out of a helicopter, land on a car and live? Perhaps the answer to that last one lies in the sequel. I'm not optimistic.
- Comment from:
- tpb
- Date:
- October 16, 2009
Yeah... well... I watched 'em back-to-back, Crank and Crank 2... I don't know... Left me a little numb, but still... I didn't turn it off... I kept right at it to the end... I'm not sure how that reflects on me... I'm still thinking of dropping a Crank 2 review out here...
Interesting, so much speculative thought. I was left only with the satisfied nausea that can only come from a movie (a movie, not a film) such as this. I love the POB reference.