Former stunt co-ordinator Mark Neveldine and his co-writer and co-director Brian Taylor have crafted a wild movie that is very noisy and quite ludicrous. Admittedly, the action scenes are well handled and frequently inventive, such as Chev driving through a shopping mall and stacking his car sideways on the escalator. What it lacks in martial arts choreography, the film makes up for with insane stunt work.

Statham performs most of his own stunts - including racing a motorcycle on the streets of L.A. like a Grand Theft Auto game - sporting merely a back-less hospital gown, and fighting out bad guys while hanging out of a helicopter 3,000 feet above L.A. with only a thin wire to keep him from falling. In another lengthy sequence, he runs through a hospital and rides a motorcycle through L.A. wearing only that ill-fitting hospital gown.

Statham's cocksure charm certainly owns the film, establishing himself as a James Bond for the “Details” generation, but he can only do so much alone. Still, Crank cranks it out, and is a must-see (to be believed). - A.J.