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 Statham plays a hitman who has been injected with a lethal poison: If his heart rate drops below a certain point, he will die. He must keep his adrenaline flowing in order to stay alive long enough to take revenge on the people responsible for his predicament. |
LOS ANGELES -- Is Hollywood's next major action star a Brit?
Englishman Jason Statham appears poised to make his biggest impression yet in the new non-stop, low-budget action film, Crank, in theatres Friday.
In the film, Statham, who previously starred in The Transporter and its sequel after getting his start in Guy Ritchie's Lock, Stock, And Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch, is Chev Chelios, an L.A. hitman who has been poisoned. The kicker is he has to keep his adrenaline levels high in order to slow down the poison and track down his killers in one hour.
Think of it as D.O.A.-meets-Speed.
"This is another interesting character, slightly different than what I've done before," says the ruggedly handsome and currently single Statham, 34. "He's much more of a less internal guy, more of a desperate man doing desperate things trying to stay alive,"
First-time filmmakers Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor are hopeful Statham's physically demanding and comical performance will elevate him to another level of stardom.
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"He's really that tough," Taylor says. "And he does his own stunts. He's an incredible actor. He can pretty much do anything an actor can do. We were just amazed by him every day. He didn't think he could do comedy but he's great at comedy. He can do the romantic scenes and you really believe that he could smash somebody's face in. We feel like this is not just some formula action star, like a Van Damme kind of thing. We feel this is a Bruce Willis level kind of star. This guy can do anything."
Adds Neveldine: "Jason's a tough, cool, beer-drinking dude and that's who Chev Chelios is, really, that's what it comes down to. He's just a cool guy."
In addition to the non-stop action, Crank has an in-your-face visual style shot entirely with high definition cameras. Plus there is politically incorrect irreverence by the dollops.
"I was a little worried about it, to be honest," Statham says of the movie's take-no-prisoners tone. "Because he is a guy who is ... stepping all over everybody to some degree. But when you realize it's the only thing he's got left, it becomes a comical escapade. It's very sick and twisted. It's much more funny than I originally anticipated it would be."
The two filmmakers, who wrote the Crank script in four-and-a-half days and shot the movie in 30 days, came to Vancouver to meet Statham while he was on location.
And despite their inexperience in features, he was impressed with their extensive commercial background.
"They sold me," Statham says. "I saw their show reel and it's a visual f--king masterpiece. They've got such a good energy and this whole film is like a very fast-paced, energized movie, so they kind of fit the bill to do this kind of film. At times, it can be quite difficult to make a decision, but high reward comes from high risk so you've got to take a chance." For their part, Neveldine and Taylor couldn't think of anyone better for the role once Statham was suggested to them.
"There was nobody in L.A. who could cut it,"says Taylor of why they went across the pond to find an actor. "We wanted an old-school, Roy Scheider-Steve McQueen tough guy, who you'd really believe would do this stuff -- and we couldn't find him here. We had to go 6,000 miles to find the guy."
Adds Neveldine: "America's breeding wimps. I don't know. It's weird. We wonder what it is. Where are those guys? They were around in the '70s and even the '80s, but it may be politically correct culture that's just wasting us away down the drain."
Statham comes by his tough guy credentials honestly. He was previously an Olympic diver on the British national diving team before he segued into modeling and acting. Now he says he takes great pleasure in doing all of his own stunts.
"I pretty much did everything, yeah," he says with a smile. "I do enjoy most crazy activities and I get a big thrill out of doing my stuff. I think it separates me from most of the other Hollywood action guys because I spent years and years as an athlete learning how to do stuff and so it's a little string to my bow that I've kept in my back pocket."
In the case of Crank, his stunts included driving a car through a mall, balancing on the top of a motorcycle in a hospital gown with nothing on underneath and an evident erection, and hanging off a helicopter about 3,000 feet above L.A. during the film's climactic fight sequence.
"We did a lot of crazy things in this movie," Statham says. "I kind of got my cue from Brian and Mark, who were much madder than me. So it's like you can't really say no to these guys because they're so enthusiastic. They have a real sense of luring you into their mad world, so yeah, I said, 'I'll put on a hospital gown and run around with (an erection), no problem.' Whatever next?"
For Statham, it's more action, definitely.
He has already filmed Rogue with Jet Li and In The Name Of The King: A Dungeon Siege Tale, and still to come is The Brazilian Job, a sequel to The Italian Job.
Incredibly, the martial arts expert never thought he'd be an action star.
"I never actually thought I'd get involved in action movies," Statham says. "When I was first given a start by Guy Ritchie, he was making black comedy-dramas, not so much action movies . And it was only (writer-director) Luc Besson who gave me a shot at expressing a few of my sort of hidden capabilities in (The Transporter). I was a high diver for years, so for me to climb up in a rig and fall backwards from 200 feet over a concrete floor while Neveldine was there with the camera was a chance not to miss. And that also includes hanging out of a helicopter about 3,000 feet above downtown L.A. In for a penny, in for a pound."