Crank High Voltage

Apr 16, 2009  Directed by Mark Neveldine, Brian Taylor. With Jason Statham, Amy Smart, Clifton Collins Jr., Dwight Yoakam. Chelios faces a Chinese mobster who has stolen his nearly indestructible heart and replaced it with a battery-powered ticker which requires regular jolts of electricity to keep working. We spoke with Crank: High Voltage co-director Brian Taylor about his gonzo action sequel, which debuted in 2009. Read our Crank 2 interview retrospective.

Picking up immediately where the first movie left off, CRANK HIGH VOLTAGE finds Chev surviving the climactic plunge to his most certain death on the streets of Los Angeles, only to be kidnapped by a mysterious Chinese mobster. Three months later, Chev wakes up to discover his nearly indestructible heart has been surgically removed and replaced with a battery-operated ticker that requires regular jolts of electricity in order to work. After a dangerous escape from his captors, Chev is on the run again, this time from the charismatic Mexican gang boss El Huron (Clifton Collins, Jr.), and the Chinese Triads, headed by the dangerous 100 year-old elder Poon Dong (David Carradine). Chev is determined to get his real heart back and wreak vengeance on whoever stole it, embarking on an electrifying chase through Los Angeles where anything goes to stay alive.

Indestructible badass Chev Chelios (Statham) is back, this time with an artificial heart that needs to be juiced every so often by any electric means available. The ADD aesthetic of writer-directors Neveldine and Taylor is inventive to a fault, as often tiring as it is exhilarating. And the climactic shot of Statham flipping the audience the bird pretty much sums up High Voltage’s juvenile, semitransgressive intentions. Regardless, it’s got the best use of REO Speedwagon since Smiley Face. Last dead show.

(Now playing.) —Keith Uhlich.Posted:Thursday April 23 2009.

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