2006’s Crank was one of the first R-rated action films I ever saw, and being accustomed to films behind that MPAA threshold made anything above it inherently exciting for me. I was already a fan of Jason Statham’s work on the PG-13 level with The Transporter series, but I was ready for the rawer, bloodier work from the British action star. To no one’s surprise, I loved it. But that youthful gaze can disintegrate with hindsight, especially for non-stop romps of drugs and violence like Crank. Looking back though, the film is electric and one of a kind, and despite a promising box office return and even a sequel, I don’t think we’ll ever see a movie like it ever again.
To preface, Crank sees directing novices Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor putting their own script to screen in which hitman Chev Chelios (Statham) wakes up poisoned, having to maintain a certain level of adrenaline to keep himself alive. He does so by driving through a mall, stealing drugs from a hospital in a heist-like fashion, and anything else that can keep the plot as juiced as the protagonist. It’s difficult to picture anyone but Statham in the role too, with his face being synonymous with over-the-top action during the 2000’s and early 2010’s. The story may only appeal to a certain demographic of adrenaline junkies, but the stylistic nature in which the directing duo find themselves is where the film shines: from claustrophobic dutch-angles and skate videography techniques that help convey the timely chaos of it all to the incessantly speedy pacing and decidedly happy-go-lucky tone to contrast everything you’re seeing, they don’t hold back. Both an astounding accomplishment and a fatal flaw, depending on how you look at a film that is essentially live action Grand Theft Auto, cheats enabled, showing at your local movie theater in 2006.
Operating off a small $12 million budget, Crank managed to gross over $42 million worldwide during its 2006 release, prompting a sequel and blooming career for Neveldine and Taylor. While 2009’s Crank: High Voltage grossed $8 million less than its predecessor, there still proved to be a void in over-the-top action films within pop culture. The duo also wrote and directed the Gerald Butler-led Gamer, which released the same year and grossed $40 million worldwide, but failed to garner an appreciative audience or any fruitful reflections from myself. While the two filmmakers slipped into other projects, this ultra-violent subgenre of gritty action films started to gather dust in lieu of anything deemed profitable.
But in 2010, Matthew Vaughn’s Kick-Ass came out, which seemed to be the superhero placeholder for the space that Crank had taken in that hard-R space in cinemas. It’s similar to Crank in that it’s as close to being flat-out mean spirited as it is to getting an NC-17 rating, but finds a way to stay afloat. Opposite to Neveldine and Taylor though, Vaughn had a safety net of a lengthy filmography, from the 2004 Daniel Craig-led thriller Layer Cake to 2007’s Stardust, which was an expensive fantasy film distributed by Paramount. But corporate trust and relationships doesn’t mean you can’t experiment, right?
Kind of. No one expected Vaughn to use Google Maps as an abstract storytelling technique in Kick-Ass like what was prevalent in Crank. But his stylistic interpretations were definitely more consumable and tongue in cheek, and audiences ate it up. Seeing Chloë Grace Moretz as a trained killer at wiping out rooms of drug dealers at 12 years old is fun, but more experimental in a structural sense. The cuts are quick and snappy, in service of showing the most out of an action scene rather than trying to explore what the character is experiencing or going through beyond what’s literally happening on screen. Vaughn’s film fit Crank’s mold though, as Kick-Ass brought in almost $100 million worldwide off a $30 million budget, bringing along a 2013 sequel with it that felt too little too late.
While Crank may have just represented a sliver of this hyper-violent, “video game” film demographic, it clearly left its mark on filmmakers, on both independent and professional levels. Take Ilya Naishuller, a director whose work on the viral music video Bad Motherfucker in 2013 led to the development of his 2015 theatrical release Hardcore Henry, which took the thought of a “video game movie” to a whole new reality. The elemental pull of Hardcore Henry is that it’s all in first-person, which is a feat in and of itself, especially considering its $2 million budget. It grossed just shy of $17 million worldwide, but failed to leave an impression like Kick-Ass or Crank did. Operating off of just one gimmick proved too much, especially when looking at Crank, which saw the camera moving anywhere and everywhere to amp up the gripping tension and the visceral, unadulterated enjoyment. Having a faceless protagonist is tough, especially when the first-person film spent far too much time attempting to make us care about the tale at hand. Hardcore Henry did, however, show giddy video game fanatics like myself what a true game-to-silver-screen adaptation looks like, and it’s a tad nauseating.
So where do we go from here? Well, part of what might’ve helped launch Hardcore Henry to a theatrical release in 2015 was the imminent success of Kingsman: The Secret Service just a year before. With Kingsman, Vaughn returned to the R-rated genre with guns blazing and his sights set on rejuvenating the audience’s engagement with a bit of the ultra-violence. It was Vaughn’s most successful film to date, nearly quadrupling its budget and establishing the Kingsman series, which sees the third installment releasing at the end of the year.
Kingsman may be tidier and more sensical than Crank with some steadier cinematography, editing, and a more mainstream-friendly presentation, but the bloody and self-aware spy spoof did exactly what it set out to do. Audiences just might not have picked up on the influential trails left by the likes of Neveldine and Taylor.
Outside of Vaughn’s R-rated franchise though, the exaggeratedly blood-splattering subgenre that Crank, Kick-Ass, and even Gareth Evans’ The Raid helped carve out within the larger scope of the action genre used to resemble a piece of the pie. The underdog films were always a hard sell, but typically proved fruitful in maintaining low-budget productions with acute, but still profitable margins. That slice of the pie became just a sliver in the late 2010’s with the streaming-era workhorse pumping out movies that may reach a wide audience, but slip into the subconscious of films you know you’ve seen, but completely forget everything about.
Netflix and other studios have settled into these elongated action movies that tease occasional spurts of creativity, but never stand out in any nuanced way. Crank finds its sense of humor in the unfettered dedication that Chev has in his murderous journey to stay alive. A movie like Netflix’s Project Power has the same sort of potential as something like Crank or Kick-Ass , but chooses to remain stagnant in any and all stylistic senses. Like a fighting scene from the perspective of a large cryo-chamber with a woman freezing alive inside. So much potential for some experimental presentation, and the camera just sits there, hastily showing us what’s going on but never adding any flair to it. I’ve recognized that these consistent failures to even just slightly experiment from a creative standpoint surely don’t help a film industry already reliant on streaming and subscriptions. How much control the studios have over these decisions and trends is up for grabs, and a relevant topic of discourse in film circles. For me, the products speak for themselves. But if the profits keep rolling and the films keep getting watched despite their creative bankruptcy, why even bother trying?
Time to watch hardcore. Can’t recall how much nudity Stretch had but it was an epitome of late 80’s – half of 90’s action movies (made alot later, frozen skript?). There are others aswell, not many but there are movies similar. I cant recall if the informal leon sequel had similarities aswell.