Film

Crank

Name: Crank
Genre: Action, Thriller, Crime
Released: 2006
Cast: Jason Statham, Amy Smart, Jose Pablo Cantillo, Efren Ramirez, Dwight Yoakam

Chev Chelios has ninety minutes to live and spends every one of them screaming through Los Angeles trying to keep his heart rate up before a Chinese synthetic heroin stops it for good. It's less a movie than a stunt performed at gunpoint — vulgar, gleeful, absurdly committed to its own dumb premise. Not for anyone who wants their action to breathe.

TMDb rating

6.7

If you liked this

Crank: High Voltage2009

The sequel takes the first film's insanity and doubles down with an artificial heart, a stadium orgy, and a script that seems to have been written by committee of maniacs. Somehow it works.

But It's dumber, meaner, and less coherent than the original — a hard sell if the first one already felt like too much.

Shoot 'Em Up2007no page yet

Clive Owen delivers a baby while gunning down an endless army of goons, and the film never once stops to catch its breath. Same commitment to pure, ridiculous momentum as Crank.

But The tone is broader and more cartoonish — if you wanted Crank's mean streak, this plays more like a live-action Looney Tunes.

John Wick2014

Stylish, brutally choreographed, and propulsive in its own controlled way — proof that hyper-competent violence can be elegant instead of chaotic and still keep your pulse up.

But It's far more disciplined and less unhinged; the mayhem here is precise where Crank's is feral.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

D.O.A.1949no page yet

Literally the same premise — poisoned man against the clock — but as a moody 1950 detective picture instead of an adrenaline-fueled stunt reel.

A man walks into a police station to report his own murder: he's been poisoned, has days to live, and spends the film's runtime racing to find out who did it before his body gives out. This is Crank's ancestor, done in black-and-white noir fifty-six years earlier.

But It's a slow, talky studio noir with none of Crank's velocity — the tension is verbal and investigative, not physical.

Speed1994

The granddaddy of the can't-stop-or-you-die premise — a bus that can't slow below fifty miles an hour, and ninety tense minutes of ingenuity keeping it that way.

But It's a studio thriller from another era, tamer and more earnest than Crank's gleeful nihilism.

The Transporter2002no page yet

Statham in his other signature mode — cool, controlled, whipping through fight choreography with the same physical commitment he brings to Chev Chelios, just with better manners.

But It's a more conventional action vehicle, plot and all, without Crank's format-breaking lunacy.

Nobody2021

Bob Odenkirk as an unassuming suburban dad who turns out to be terrifyingly good at violence — a surprising, gleefully brutal reinvention of an unlikely leading man.

But It's a slower burn before it detonates, and the tone shifts between domestic comedy and carnage more than Crank ever bothers to.

Gamer2009no page yet

From the same directors as Crank, a garish dystopian satire about death-row inmates controlled like video game avatars — same visual assault, same total disregard for subtlety.

But The satire is blunt and the plot thinner than Crank's, which is saying something.

Doomsday2008no page yet

A gonzo mashup of post-apocalyptic survival, medieval warfare, and car-chase mayhem that throws everything at the screen with the same shameless enthusiasm Crank has for its own excess.

But It's messier and more derivative, cheerfully stealing from a dozen other films rather than committing to one bold gimmick.

Run Lola Run1998

Twenty minutes, three chances, one woman sprinting through Berlin to save a life — kinetic, propulsive filmmaking that treats time itself as the antagonist, much like Chev's countdown.

But It's arthouse in spirit and German-language, a cooler and more cerebral experience than Crank's blunt-force approach.

Redline2009

Same sensory-overload philosophy as Crank — nonstop motion as the entire point — just rendered in hand-drawn excess instead of handheld camera.

A Japanese animated film about an illegal interstellar street race so relentlessly overloaded with color, speed, and noise that it makes live-action action look restrained by comparison.

But It's anime, subtitled, and so visually maximalist some viewers find it exhausting rather than exhilarating — an acquired taste even among genre fans.

127 Hours2010

Both are countdown stories about a body fighting to stay alive against overwhelming odds, but this one trades absurdist spectacle for quiet, harrowing realism.

James Franco as a hiker trapped by a boulder, forced to keep his body and mind functioning against every instinct to give up — a true story of survival powered by sheer will rather than adrenaline shots and cocaine.

But It's grounded, painful, and emotionally serious where Crank is a cartoon — expect a gut-punch, not a laugh.