Crank

Empire Nick De Semlyen

A Saw for the action crowd, this is an intense, stripped-down ride that goes places you’d never expect. Edgy and outrageous, it should get the fearless Statham some deserved attention.

LA Weekly Luke Y. Thompson

First-time feature directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor play with speed and sound to effectively recreate the buzz of an over-caffeinated all-nighter, delivering one of the year’s best pure junk-food entertainments.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

Crank is an efficient, witty, junkyard dog of an action movie for its first hour. Unfortunately, the script runs out of gas before the hero does. While it's cooking, though, it's violently preposterous fun.

Philadelphia Inquirer David Hiltbrand

If you can stomach the hard-R rating, this is a smart, sexy and funny sprint.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

Crank" is "D.O.A" on methamphetamines.

Los Angeles Times Michael Ordona

Neveldine and Taylor empty their handbasket of cinematic tricks. They display visual wit, have fun with pop songs, and shoot much of the film in slightly choppy fast-motion ("under-cranked," get it?).

The Hollywood Reporter Michael Rechtshaffen

The 2006 summer movie season went out with a reasonable bang courtesy of Crank, a jacked-up, unapologetically mindless bit of ADD-prescribed escapism that more or less delivers on a nifty premise.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

This is one of those movies whose empty-headed premise is so pure it's witty: with his insatiable need for excitement, the hero is a perfect stand-in for the fanboys in the audience.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

The movie is cranked up somewhere between stylish and proudly stupid, dusted with sunniness from Amy Smart (as Chev's sleepy girlfriend) -- and guaranteed to be out of your system by the time the lights come up.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

It's a sympathomimetic monoamine that stimulates the central nervous system! Hooray epinephrine! And that's all I'm going to say about Crank.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

One could argue that Crank works best as a comedy. It's occasionally funny, and some times VERY funny.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

So blatantly contrived it could be called The Fast and the Spurious, Crank has the small saving grace of being intentionally ridiculous. The action sequences are more notable for their outrageousness than their visceral power.

Variety Justin Chang

Videogamers who've been itching for "Grand Theft Auto: The Movie" can tide themselves over in the meantime with Crank, a down-and-dirty actioner that follows a rugged antihero trying to outrun death by keeping his adrenaline flowing.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps

Its a stupid thrill for a while, but the high wears off, and the anything-goes approach gets headache-inducing.

San Francisco Chronicle Neva Chonin

It's all about the dumb thrill, baby. Leave it alone, or leave your brain and pocket change at the gate, strap yourself in and just enjoy the ride.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Genially preposterous, with stunt players outnumbering actors by something like a 3-to-1 ratio, the action thriller Crank is surprisingly watchable.

TV Guide Ken Fox

The whole thing whizzes by in such a panicked rush that there's no time for anything so immaterial as character, but what little we do learn about Chev works against the film.

The New York Times Nathan Lee

For a movie premised on unrelenting action, Crank proves fatally turgid.

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

Every movie's gotta have a gimmick, and Crank's is that it has an excellent shot at ending 2006 as the worst film of the year.