rank, a jet-fueled collision of "D.O.A" and "Speed," has the always-cool British star Jason Statham soaking up his character - freelance contract killer Chev Chelios - way too completely.

Statham's Chev awakes from a sleep barely able to move and with a heart that's hardly beating. He learns from a freshly burned DVD left behind by his killer (with a sweet "Fuck You" stamped across it) that he has been injected with a potion, a Beijing cocktail that was injected by gang boss Ricky Verona (Jose Pablo Cantillo) while he was sleeping.

This lethal mix of poisons - referred to throughout the movie as simply "that Chinese shit" - will cut off his adrenaline and stop his heart. Chev, with merely an hour to live, contacts shady, out-of-town Doctor Miles (Dwight Yoakam), who, between mixed drinks, guides him through his day from hell until he finds an antidote. Lacking any such cure, Chev just wants to keep alive long enough to find and kill his poisoners.

But Dr. Miles does know of a way that Chev can improve his chances of survival: Chev needs to keep adrenalin pumping furiously through his system to prevent his heart from shutting down. Once he slows, he dies. So we spend the next 90 minutes following our hero as he hurtles through L.A., injecting drugs, committing crimes, beating hospital patients, throwing himself at moving vehicles, getting behind the wheel of speeding cars and has vicious sex in vegetable markets. He uses everything at his disposal – which include hospital-grade epinephrine and multiple cans of Red Bull - to keep his adrenaline constantly pumping.