Free screenings in LA are dangerous places. 50% of the people there were the itinerant homeless or the habitual drug users, people looking, not for a movie, but for a hassle-free place to chill for a couple hours. The people next to me were perfect examples. Middle-aged, they were five or six strong. One of them went down to dance in front of the screen while the hip-hop station crew were trying to warm up the crowd (warm up the crowd for CRANK? Weird). He was a bad dancer. His two female companions closer to me in the row were both wearing ludicrous amounts of what Im pretty sure was a mans cologne and fidgeting a lot. Ive never done coke, but I feel like if I did, I wouldnt want to then go sit in a movie theatre for three hours or so. Whatever.
CRANK. Like an 86-minute music video. It had no business being anything more than a 30-minute short, and that would have been stretching it. Amy Smarts character wasnt introduced until 30 minutes in, and the “Im quitting the biz” story that they tried to smash in was insane. That said, I liked the performances by both Jason Statham and Amy Smart, but jesus, somebody give them something rational to do. The whole movie Statham is running around smashing into things because thats the only way to keep him alive. Im running out of energy to talk about this movie, actually. Ah well. On the Clapboard Film-Reel-As-Stars Rating Scale where 5 Reels is the best, I give this movie 2 reels. Worse than SNAKES ON A PLANE because SNAKES new what it was and was gloriously, unpretentiously bad-as-fun. CRANK wasnt.
