As far as modern action heroes go, one of the most enduring has certainly been Jason Statham, who’s headlined a slew of modestly budgeted action flicks that have made him one of the few genre staples left in the game. His career has been interesting, with him alternating smaller-scaled action flicks with bigger, tentpole event films, such as the Fast & Furious films and The Meg 1 & 2. Yet, the movie that established his persona wasn’t the Transporter films or any of his Guy Ritchie movies. Nope, instead, it was a small-scale but ambitious quasi-remake of the film noir classic D.O.A that put him on the map in a big way. That’s right, folks, it’s time to figure out WTF Happened to Crank!
Jump back to 1997, when a young English director named Guy Ritchie released a little film called Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, which caused a sensation. One of the unknown actors in the film was a young Jason Statham, who had been a competitive swimmer before becoming a rather macho-looking male model in the mid-nineties. Despite a receding hairline and unconventional good looks, Statham’s role in the film caused a stir, leading to Ritchie giving him one of the leading roles in his follow-up, Snatch, which was an even bigger hit. This led to two supporting roles in American films, with him cast in John Carpenter’s Ghosts of Mars and the Jet Li vehicle The One, where he got to show off some of his martial arts training, with Statham having prior expertise in Kung fu, kickboxing and karate.
These roles and his physical prowess caught the eye of Luc Besson, who was assembling a slew of European-made action films in English for the international market. He was given the lead in The Transporter, where he played a shady courier/ getaway driver who breaks his own code when he realizes he’s gotten caught up in human trafficking. The role was a riff on the then-popular slate of BMW short films starring Clive Owen as an unnamed driver. The film was a modest success, making $25 million in the US and another $18 million internationally. Yet, it was a smash success on DVD, with it turning into such a big seller, a sequel, Transporter 2, was produced, which ended up doubling its predecessors’ gross. It was helped by the fact that the successful remake of The Italian Job had also showcased Statham to great effect. Thus, Statham had arrived.
The time had come for Statham to play the lead in his first American studio film. Enter Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, two former DP’s and camera operators (who would also operate both a and b camera units on their movies), making their directorial debut with Crank, a movie they’d also written. Crank uses the same formula as a classic film noir, D.O.A, where a man is poisoned and given only a short time to live, which he uses to track down his killers. In Crank, their anti-hero would be a hitman, improbably named Chev Chelios. He’s infected with a drug that inhibits the flow of adrenaline, killing the victim. Yet, there’s a way for him to at least temporarily stay alive. If he can keep his adrenaline going, he can stay alive. Thus, to have the time to track down his killers, he has to keep the adrenaline flowing in any way he can, meaning fights, stunts, and lots of drugs. It’s a unique take on the genre, but it wasn’t designed with Statham in mind.
In fact, given that the film was pitched more as a dark comedy, it was offered to both Nicolas Cage (who later worked with the directors on Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance) and Johnny Knoxville before they went to Statham. In an interview, the directors claimed they wanted a non-traditional action hero for the lead. Chev Chelios is considered a throwback to the kind of action protagonist you’d see in seventies films, with guys like Roy Scheider.
This dovetailed nicely with Statham’s own career plans. He wished to make something down and dirty to get away from the overly polished and CGI-enhanced vibe of the larger-than-life Transporter movies. It proved ideal casting, with the resulting film perfectly marrying the streetwise antihero vibe of Statham’s work in Guy Ritchie movies to the action genre with heavy doses of black comedy.
Sporting a low $12 million budget, Neveldine/ Taylor were early adopters of digital technology, shooting the film with Canon XL2 and Sony CineAlta HDC-F950 cameras. No CGI was used, and the fight sequences were grounded despite the film’s ultra-frenetic, almost demented pace. Basically, the movie took the aesthetic of Run Lola Run, in which the pace never let up, but gave it this heavy-duty, methamphetamine-imbued vibe, as per the name, Crank, which is slang for meth.
The film benefitted from a strong supporting cast, which included Amy Smart as Chev’s girlfriend, who, to save his life, has sex with him in public to keep his adrenaline going in one memorable scene. Napoleon Dynamite’s Efren Ramirez shows up as Chev’s cross-dressing sidekick, while Dwight Yoakam gives the film some class as his doctor. Also, look out for It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’s Glenn Howerton in an early role.
Despite being heavily advertised on the then-new YouTube platform, Crank wasn’t a major success at the box office, topping out at $27 million domestically. However, given the low budget and the foreign gross, it turned a nice profit. It set the pattern for many Statham movies to follow, with many of his vehicles only performing modestly at the box office, only to become mainstays once they hit DVD, cable, and eventually streaming.
In fact, just like The Transporter, Crank was a big enough moneymaker on home video that Neveldine/Taylor were allowed to make a sequel, Crank: High Voltage. This is perhaps an even more deranged movie than its predecessors, where Chev somehow survives falling out of a helicopter over downtown LA to fight another day. This one tanked at the box office, only making $13 million, killing potential plans for a third film.
Whatever the case, Crank helped make Statham the icon he is today, with it quickly followed by movies like Death Race and The Expendables, before the Fast & Furious films arguably elevated him to another sphere, with his recent The Beekeeper one of his highest-grossers in terms of solo star vehicles domestically (his new movie – A Working Man – also has great buzz).
As for Neveldine/ Taylor, they went on to direct Gamer and Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance before their partnership ended. Mark Nelveldine, who married actress Alison Lohman, has had a low-key career since, with his DTV action movie, Panama earning poor notices (although one hesitates to blame him given that it was shot in 14 days – I’m not sure how you make a good movie on a timetable like that), while Brian Taylor directed the well-received Mom & Dad, before the recent Hellboy: The Crooked Man, which went direct to VOD. That said, Statham apparently has a lot of fondness for the Crank films and has repeatedly said he’d make another one if Neveldine/ Taylor were involved, so perhaps we’ll get another adventure for Chev Chelios after all!
