Crank: High Voltage (2009)

O Masterpiece

O Excellent

O Good

X OK

O Mediocrity

O Avoid

Review by Jason Pyles / May 2, 2009

The first movie, "Crank" (2006), took the intriguing plot device used in "Speed" (1994) and gave it a biological twist: In "Speed," Sandra Bullock's character is trapped driving a bus rigged to explode if its speed falls below 50 mph. In "Crank," Jason Statham's Chev Chelios is injected with a poison that will kill him if he doesn't keep his heart rate up and adrenaline pumping.

Now we have "Crank 2: High Voltage," which is just as preposterous as its predecessor, and just as alienating to its viewers. Yes, these "Crank" movies are apparently made only for a select type of moviegoer, an audience of outliers. The typical spectator would likely be put off by these movies or simply regard them with contempt. In short, "Crank 2: High Voltage" is guilty pleasure escapists' fare: mindless, vulgar action, a movie requires a hefty suspension of disbelief — not for realists.

The movie opens with Chelios being dropped out of a helicopter. After his spill, Chelios’ heart is stolen from his chest, and he's graciously given an artificial one in its place. (The organ harvesters evidently aren't as heartless as Chelios.) So basically, he spends the remainder of the movie trying to recover his real heart — a pursuit that he undertakes with real heart — but there's a catch: His loaner is only designed for temporary, non-strenuous use. Oh, and it frequently needs to be charged, because once it runs out of juice, his heart will stop beating.

That leads to the movie’s sole gimmick, a plot device that is basically a game for the screenwriters who have to come up with myriad ways for Chelios to recharge. These methods typically involve electricity, but “friction” is one method, and I’ll give you three guesses how that is achieved: Yes, there’s a scene at a horse race that is nothing short of pornographic.

Chelios’ real heart essentially serves as what Alfred Hitchcock referred to as a “MacGuffin,” which is an object whose purpose is truly irrelevant, except for its utility as a plot device to motivate the characters to action, moving the story along. For instance, whatever was in the mysterious briefcase in “Pulp Fiction” (1994) is a good example of a MacGuffin. It doesn’t matter what it is, it only matters that it provides the engine to drive the plot forward.

It may seems strange, but “Crank 2: High Voltage” made me reflect on one of the significant events in film history: According to film historians Louis Giannetti and Scott Eyman, in 1872 the governor of California insisted that a horse has all four feet off the ground during a full-stride run. The governor had skeptics who doubted his assertion, so he hired a photographer (and murderer) from San Francisco named Eadward Muybridge to prove his theory. 

To make a long story shorter, Muybridge set up a line of cameras that photographed a running horse and proved that a horse does, in fact, have all four feet off the ground during a full-stride run. Well, there’s a shot in “Crank 2” that suggests another little-known fact about the whereabouts of a horse’s anatomy while running. Enlightening indeed.

Directed by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor

Jason Statham / Amy Smart / Dwight Yoakam

Action     96 min.

MPAA: R (for frenetic strong bloody violence throughout, crude and graphic sexual content, nudity and pervasive language).