Written by: Susan Granger
SusanGranger.com

Writers/directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, veterans of the music video/commercial industry, set out to make a nonstop action movie. “We have A.D.D., and so do 70 million other Americans,” Neveldine jokes. “And we wanted to make a movie that was just like a video game.” Taylor adds, “’Crank’ is the ultimate A.D.D. movie. It’s a crazy film.”

So the story takes place over the course of one frenzied day in Los Angeles, where a British hit man, Chev Chelios (Jason Statham), discovers that his nemesis, Ricky Verona (Jose Pablo Cantillo), has injected him with a synthetic drug, called “the Beijing Cocktail,” that will kill him if his heart rate drops down below a certain level.

With the help of a cross-dressing buddy and informant Kaylo (Efren Ramiriz), the medical counsel of rockin’ Doc Miles (Dwight Yoakam), a sexual surge in Chinatown from his oblivious girl-friend (Amy Smart) and the ingestions of gallons of Red Bull – not to mention energy supplements, cocaine and nasal decongestant - he’s able to keep enough adrenaline pumping to wreak gruesome revenge in a climax that finds Chelios battling Verona while hanging out of a helicopter.

Basically, it’s a hyperactive hybrid that blends “Speed,” in which Sandra Bullock had to keep driving a bomb-laden bus, with Dennis Quaid’s film noir “D.O.A.” - filled with feverish, hand-held camerawork, satellite computer maps, jump cuts and jerky edits. Like Quentin Tarantion’s “Pulp Fiction,” it glamorizes profanity, violence and amorality. Jason Stratham continues on his high-octane “Transporter” ride, presumably doing his own stuntwork, including dangling 3,000 in the air.

On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, Crank is an irritating 4. It’s a reckless, relentless rush that goes nowhere in an exhausting 83 minutes.