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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.

Slumdog Millionaire: Rising From the Ashes

You gotta get on that train, kid. Trust me. It was in a movie much older than this one.

Rating: 9 out of 10

The last two months of the year always bring out the heavy hitters from both the studio pipeline and the independent circuit. It can almost become a test in itself to keep perspective about what constitutes a good or possibly great film. The bar of quality can get subconsciously raised so high that everything starts to either blend together or pale in comparison to one overwhelmingly powerful piece of cinema. Yet no matter how hard the struggle may get, everyone wins in the end because the audience is presented with a plethora of great films to enjoy.

I’m sure you see where this is going in terms of how I feel about this next movie. If not, please go back and read the first part again. Slowly this time.

Slumdog Millionaire is the story of Jamal, a young boy growing up in the poverty stricken parts of the big cities in India. Through a twisting and winding series of events he finds himself as a contestant on their country’s version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. His fame and wonder grows as he answers question after question correctly until he is on the brink of completing game and winning the grand prize. As most good stories do, this film begins with a question; how does he know all the answers? Is he cheating? Or is it written?

Simon Beaufoy, the writer of the screenplay, got the story from a novel called Q&A by Vikas Swarup. It’s true I haven’t read the book, so I don’t know how close the movie follows along or how much was creative license, but either way, the structure of the film is a beautiful example of intelligent and well-planned storytelling. Each question in the movie leads to another flashback, a new vignette into the history of where Jamal came from and the struggles he went through to get where he is. It allows the audience to get pieces of information that are only pertinent to the scene in front of it without having to wallow through sixteen years of a childhood. It also breaks the film up nicely and serves as a nice reminder when the footage you are watching is particularly harsh that he does make it through somehow, since we see him on the game show. The true power of the story is the celebration of love, destiny and the belief it is still possible, no matter what the costs. As mentioned previously, some of the footage, mostly in the first thirty minutes, can be very hard to sit through due to a few scenes of child abuse, alluded to and shown. The tolerance level gets pushed nearly too far, but at the last possible second the film turns the corner and those previous scenes now become the anchor to where it goes from there.

Danny Boyle, who directed this fine feature, is no stranger to telling love stories in the most chilling or tragic of circumstances (take a glance back at The Beach) or pushing cinema to new levels of uncomfortable (try some of the key scenes from Trainspotting or 28 Days Later). No matter if it’s love or death, Danny Boyle always comes to the plate with something visually interesting and compelling, never failing to leave a lingering impression which sparks conversation even weeks afterward. Beyond those intense scenes in the beginning, there are numerous moments throughout the film which stand out. I won’t go into them all here for the sake of saving surprises for the theater, but believe me, they are there. Another talent Boyle has is working with the actors, which should always be the main role of the director. The performances here from Dev Patel, who plays our lead Jamal; Freida Pinto, who plays the romantic interest Latika; and Irfan Khan, who plays the police inspector, are all incredible and worthy of mention. Dev is definitely the heart and soul and drives the film, but his skills are only exemplified by the support he receives in each and every scene by the other cast members. Dev has only one credit outside of this film, but I have no doubt it will be filling up nicely after this film makes the rounds. The same holds for Frida, who actually only has this single credit to her name, but with her presence, talent and striking beauty, she will be gracing the silver screen for years to come, if we’re lucky. Irfan was quite busy before this movie came along and that doesn’t look to be slowing down for him any time soon.

Now although everything up to this point has been glowing and full of praise, this film not perfect. I had one main issue coming out of the theater and it has to do with the character of Salim, Jamal’s older brother, played by Madhur Mittal. There is an obvious triangle in the film between Jamal, Salim and Latika, but even before that appears, Salim constantly jumps back and forth between an undying loyalty and love to his younger brother and in the next scene betraying him in the worst ways imaginable. Some might argue it is an issue of control and Salim’s constant battle to keep it over Jamal, but I’m not sure it is supported by the story. Whatever the case may be, the audience is never granted with any explanation of Salim’s motives and I feel it harms our ability to emotionally connect with his character. It is not a deal breaker by far in this film, but since everything else in the movie was done so well, this little fact stuck out for me.

Recommendation: This is a true must-see film. If you miss it in the theater or it doesn’t play anywhere near you, rent it the first chance you get. Strap yourself in and ride out the tougher stuff in the beginning of the film, you will not be sorry. Also, not to plug another film, but if you like great films with themes of undeterred love, check out Brick; it’s in my Top Ten Movies of All Time. Lastly, if you’re a fan at all of Danny Boyle, I would be remiss in forgetting to mention the under-appreciated and terribly under-marketed Sunshine, which was without a doubt one of the best Sci-Fi films of last year, if not the last five years.

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