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Wednesday, September 06, 2006
Jason 'The Transporter' Statham pumps up the action anew in 'Crank'
YOU'VE known him as the fast-moving, high-flying and bullet-dodging dude in "The Transporter". Now, he's back! Jason "The Transporter" Statham, the actor who has been brought to the forefront of the younger generation of action heroes, will raise your adrenaline once again with his new movie "Crank".
Chev Chelios (Jason Statham) has been freelancing as a hit-man for a major West Coast syndicate but a run of the mill job the night before went awry: he let his target slip away in an effort to quit professional killing and start a new life with his girlfriend Eve (Amy Smart).
The action-packed "do or die" film takes place over the course of one frenzied day in Los Angeles when Chev is about to begin his morning with an unexpected wake-up call. Groggy, practically unable to move and with a heart that's barely beating, he hears the voice of thug Ricky Verona (Jose Pablo Cantillo), who reveals Chev has been poisoned in his sleep and only has an hour to live.
Now, Chev must keep moving to stay alive: the only way to prolong the poison from stopping his heart is to keep his adrenaline flowing. As the clock ticks, Chelios cuts a swath through the streets of Los Angeles, wreaking havoc on those who dare stand in his way. He must rescue Eve from danger, stay two steps ahead of his nemeses and search for an antidote to save his own life.
For writer/directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, former commercial helmers making their feature debut, "Crank" stemmed from their own personal desire to make a nonstop action movie. "We have A.D.D. (Attention Deficit Disorder), and so do seventy million other Americans," jokes Neveldine. Adds Taylor, "Crank is the ultimate A.D.D. movie. It's a crazy film."
"With Crank we wanted to do a movie where a guy was moving, moving, moving all the time. It's like "Speed", only instead of a bus, it's a guy. And if he slows down, he detonates," says Taylor. "It gave us a built-in way to move the camera the way we like to move it and to attack the world of the character the way we wanted to attack his world."
"The screenplay was completely different from anything I'd ever read," recalls Statham. "I mean, it's crazy. It's beyond crazy. There were so many great scenes. It was so full of violence, romance, comedy, drama. It's kind of ten movies in one."
He was also impressed with the directors' abilities from the beginning. "I was very interested in the screenplay. When I met Mark and Brian, they started to explain it and showed me their reel. I saw that they had a very strict vision of what they wanted that sounded so different than a lot of the material out there."
Yet even he didn't seem to realize that part of what the directors had in mind was Neveldine strapping on a pair of roller blades and filming the action with a handheld camera. "I'm driving along and they're sticking a camera between my legs. It's just so freeform. I've never seen anything like it. For me, the best experiences are working with people that have written it and can direct it. I never thought they would operate the camera as well."
Taylor states, "I think when people see this movie they're going to see a movie that looks different from any other film they ever saw. And that was our goal." He adds, "If we're going to embrace this new technology and go through all the learning curves of working with it, let's get something out of it and try to break new ground."
So buckle up for nonstop action, chair-gripping suspense and intense drama in "Crank", the new movie starring Jason Statham. Cranking up on September 13 at your favorite theaters. Distributed by Viva International Pictures. (Press release)
(September 6, 2006 issue)
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