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Crank – High Voltage: High Style, Low Content

OK, who’s the funny bloke who told me to stick my tongue to this thing?

Rating: 3 out of 10

“Just go in, shut your brain off and watch the pretty colors.” I’ve used this statement many times before to friends of mine who might take a film too seriously: I was incredibly prepared to follow my own advice while walking into this inevitable sequel. The original movie, Crank, ends in a fashion defying anything resembling logic. By the closing moments in that film you’ve left logic sitting at a bus stop forty miles out of town, lonely and holding an empty popcorn tub. You could say that Crank: High Voltage doesn’t disappoint in faithfully keeping the trend going, but then again, it all depends on what you find disappointing.

Crank: High Voltage begins three months after the final moment of the first film. Our fearless anti-hero, Chev Chelios, has his miraculously still beating heart harvested and replaced with an artificial one that only runs with the constant intake of electricity. Chev wakes up before the rest of him is picked apart and goes on a multi-million volt tirade in search of the people behind his involuntary organ donorship. Banding together once again with the strangest people in the underworld of Los Angeles, Chev unleashes constant mayhem on all who stand in his way.

Coming from a long standing love of brainless action films (Demolition Man, Showdown in Little Tokyo and Gymkata, just to name a few), I am one of the first to jump up for something that barely resembles a plot and takes in no consideration for performances or tone as long as the action is true and holds together. This one tiny thing is something co-directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor seemingly did not know how to do. These two loudly broke down the walls of Hollywood with the original Crank and many regarded them as the new, fresh faces of the indie-action genre. Yet the failure here is that beyond the inclusion of 8-bit video game graphics, there is nothing new to their style. Crank: High Voltage pulsates off the screen like a mixture of Guy Ritchie (circa Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels), Danny Boyle (circa Trainspotting) and a massive overdose of Adderall. The whole thing ends up as a collage of scenes strung together by the running thought, “Wouldn’t it be cool if this happened here?” I’m usually a big fan of that question, but only when this next question is successfully answered: “But does it make any sense at all?” Strident, frenetic and unapologetically overdone, this movie only shows what a freshman student filmmaker could do with a little cash and some famous friends.

Jason Statham, reprising his role as the unstoppable Chelios, shows up and does what is required of him, but unfortunately that’s not much. He gives the stare, gets beat and tortured mercilessly, then breaks through everything with pure rage. He’s the main draw for this because without a doubt he is the most underrated action star on screen today. He is also the action genre’s version of Samuel L. Jackson, who will do just about any movie attached to a paycheck. The only difference is Statham is not getting offered the big budget flicks that will elevate him to where he deserves to be. Many actors get to a point when they do one studio film for the check and one indie film for the credit, but Statham seems to be hovering on a see-saw of bad versus good choices. He stunned people in his debut in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, followed nicely by Snatch (see the Guy Ritchie connection forming?), but just as he was riding the wave of stardom up the action movie totem pole, he starred in The One, his first pairing with legendary kung-fu icon, Jet Li, which left a lot to be desired. Their second time out together in War tumbled even farther down the hole. Statham also followed his bank account to the set of In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale, directed by the infamous Uwe Boll, where Statham was a random Renaissance-era farmer who just happened to know martial arts. Yet, on the other side of the resume, keeping people interested was a handful of stand out performances in The Italian Job, The Bank Job (no relation) and the original Transporter (the franchise has slipped a bit in quality since then). I’m still keeping my hopes up for his upcoming projects: 13, The Brazilian Job (this one actually is related) and the Sylvester Stallone directed uber-explosion flick, The Expendables. Statham is better than this particular franchise and I look forward to him getting to prove it.

Now, not that these types of movies really get a whole lot of acting critiquing going on, I can’t let this go without mentioning the painfully terrible visual caricature of Bai Ling. Bordering on offensive, her turn as a hooker who gets psychotically attached to Statham brought groans from all over the audience. She trots over the line between comical and tragically bad taste in a pair of trampy stiletto heels. I can’t add anything positive under the realm of Amy Smart (who plays Chev’s girlfriend, Eve) or any of the random cameos that litter this movie. The only person who actually gets away with a believable character is Dwight Yoakam as the brilliant and depraved friend-cum-heart surgeon. The filmmakers actually gained a point for having his character laughably stop himself halfway through the picture while telling Chev, “You should be dead already. Doesn’t matter. Anyway…” It was a nice admission from behind the silver screen that they knew none of this really worked as a story of any value, instead relying on my old turn of phrase, “Just go in, shut your brain off and watch the pretty colors.”.

Recommendation: The main failure here is that the whole film is one big joke, but it felt like the filmmakers weren’t letting anyone else in on it. It’s more like something made by a bunch of friends who all made each other laugh on set without ever thinking if it would work on anyone else. Watch at home while drinking, but not if you have any history of epileptic seizures.

RocknRolla: Ritchie Gives Tarantino the Ole’ One-Two

[ Click above to buy the poster]

2 out of 3 people in the poster are looking off to the left. The girl would be looking there too, but she’s playing coy.

Are you looking to step into a bit of the ole’ underground? Yearning for a taste of the underbelly of London? Maybe you’re just missing the sounds of those thick British accents as the words stumble into your ears and confuse more than inform you. Whatever the case may be, there is only one man who truly provides the cure for those ills…Guy Ritchie.

The man behind Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch is back once again with another chapter is his series of old school mob movies. RocknRolla follows along a certain tradition for Ritchie, fast talking and fast reacting characters keep the audience tense, because they have absolutely no clue what will happen next. Keep the characters unpredictable and keep the audience involved, that’s the key. Now, if you noticed the title of this review, you might be wondering where the connection to Quentin Tarantino comes in (and that is a most perceptive and valid question. Well done, reader). After the movie ended I turned to my friend and said, “One sentence review: The British Pulp Fiction.” He sat back, processed the comparison and smiled. “Yep, you’re totally right.” I’ll show you what I mean while giving a brief overview of the story.

RocknRolla follows a small gang of low level criminals known as The Wild Bunch, who get hired by a sexy accountant to rip off some big money from an even bigger mobster. What she didn’t know is our little hooligans were already in debt to the local crime lord, who was doing business with the “bigger mobster”. So money is stolen, circulated, recycled and everyone ends up chasing each others tails. Also, there is a painting that gets stolen and becomes the MacGuffin of the film, which is a cinematic term for an object that is central to the plot, but no one ever really sees it. People philosophize, people die and people are nearly sodomized.

If the specifics of the comparison aren’t gelling for you yet, here’s a breakdown:

- MacGuffins: Pulp Fiction has the briefcase which we never see inside. RocknRolla has the painting which we never see the front of.

- Crooks in way over their head: Gerard Butler and Idris Elba play the heads of The Wild Bunch and are constantly trying to keep one step ahead of being killed by the very person they are working for, just like John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson (more Travolta though, in this case).

- The Girl is the Problem: Thandie Newton is the instigator of the troubles which put Gerard into play, just like Uma Thurman goes after Travolta, thereby putting him in a situation of life or death.

- Multiple storylines: RocknRolla is not set up in the vignette fashion of Pulp Fiction, but both deal with a number of plot lines that all converge in the end to tie things up.

- Sodomy Interruption: Both films have a scene where a guy is about to be raped by a pair of leather clothed dudes, when someone comes in and makes the snap judgment on who to kill.

It can be argued that some of these things are common to all movies of the crime/mob genre, but so many together in one film makes the case a little stronger. I’m not saying RocknRolla is bad, not in the least, but I left feeling like I’d seen it before.

RocknRolla is not going to be remembered in history for iconic performances, like Travolta and Jackson, but there was some good work being done. Butler hams it up nicely as a crook-cum-swashbuckler with no dancing feet. His inherent suaveness comes to bear in his scenes with Thandie, but he also gets to show his willingness to play that in the direction of a different gender. Which brings up one big difference between this and Pulp Fiction, and this could be easily attributed to the time periods, but RocknRolla was doused in homoerotic overtones. From the sodomy to the gay side characters to the subplot of Butler and his best friend in the gang, it never gets too far away from it. This provided for some really amusing humor and grinningly awkward scenes. Idris gets to play the straight man, no pun intended, to Butler’s machismo and he achieves it well. There is a certain calm to Idris on screen which makes me certain he’s going to be around for a long time to come. Tom Wilkinson also gets to walk a little on the more wacky side as the crime boss of London, trying to prove he’s still the big fish in town and time isn’t passing him by. Thandie, who I’ve enjoyed on screen in the past, doesn’t travel much farther beyond eye candy on this occasion. Jeremy Piven and Ludacris drop by as music producers, but get paltry little screen time. The one person who will leave the biggest visual impression is Toby Kebbell, as Johnny Quid. He spends most of the film shirtless and brings back frighteningly skinny images of Chistian Bale from The Machinist. Bale still wins the freakish battle, but Kebbell kept enough muscle tone to still look dangerous as well, which gives him an edge. Lastly, blink and you’ll miss Gemma Arterton, who will be seeing much more of in the upcoming Bond film, Quantum of Solace.

Ritchie on the other hand delivers once again in more traditional style. As I mentioned before, fans of those two early films of his will certainly enjoy this. The attitude is there, the raw edge is there and the camerawork is rife with quick cuts and whip pans, just like we’re used to from him. He also wrote the film again, which helps even more keep the style intact. I think many people will be glad to see the old Guy Ritchie back on the silver screen. Yet, all his past successes could be wiped out by the possibility of greatness with his upcoming film, Sherlock Holmes, starring Robert Downey Jr. as the questioning crusader, Jude Law as the encyclopedic Dr. Watson and Rachel McAdams as lady love interest. I’m containing my excitement for this, but just barely.

Recommendation: A good flick, bordering on great, far from amazing. If you’re a fan of Ritchie from the past, you won’t be disappointed. If you’ve never seen a film of his before, feel free to check this out, but don’t stop here, see Snatch and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels as well. As for the theater experience, after the initial whip panning frenzy in the first ten minutes, it settles down and becomes quite enjoyable. I also recommend Rasinettes over Goobers (take that, peanut lovers!).

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