“Movies to Avoid” is, we hope, a semi-regular column reviewing movies that you should, by all intents and purposes, avoid seeing. You see, the authors are incredibly selfless people and will watch movies for you and tell you, when you shuffle along amid the videostore shelves or stare blankly at the theater schedule searching for a two-hour respite from life on Friday night, why this movie is worth neither your time nor money. To that end, any suspense found in the movie, unexpected turns and The Crying Game-type revelations will be spoiled because, as Wilford Brimley would say, “ It’s the right thing to do.”

Without further ado, this week’s movie is Crank, starring Jason Statham.

This 2006 flick is supposed be a non-stop, heart-pumping action flick and for the most part it delivers nonstop action. On the other hand, the only thing that doesn’t give you action is a camera trained on an inanimate object for a long time.

Directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor made a bold choice in casting Statham as hardened criminal and contract hitman Chev Chelios because that character type is obviously not his forte. It is a really good role for him, especially the first time he played it in Snatch, or the other times he has done it in The Italian Job, Transporter and Transporter 2 or pretty much any other film he’s done. Statham’s next movie is rumored to be The Recidivist.

While you may think Crank is about crystal meth, it isn’t really. Instead, Crank’s premise is that another resident of Los Angeles’ criminal underworld, Verona, is after Chev. Verona’s flunkies break into his apartment and drug him with the “Beijing cocktail.” He wakes to find a DVD in his apartment featuring Verona that informs him the cocktail is in his blood and will kill him within the hour. This is one of those movie situations that never makes sense. Ubercriminal captures his intended target but decides not to kill him right away, rather he will choose a slow, painful death and then leave him unsupervised. Haven’t these guys ever watched a Bond movie? Idiots.

The cocktail apparently affects your circulatory system and the only cure is—no, not more cowbell—to keep your adrenalin levels sky-high. Hence the title. Chelios goes on a tear around LA trying to find the man who did this to him so Chev can take his pound of flesh.

The requisite high-speed car chases and violence are not so bad, but the cinematography during this whole movie reminds me of these Japanese cartoons that give you seizures. I wouldn’t recommend watching this on acid. During the search for Verona our intrepid criminal pounds Red Bull, snorts 37 bottles of Afrin, overdoses on epinephrine and manages to get the entire LAPD chasing after him. I bet if Statham were black the LA coppers would have caught him.

During this mayhem, the viewer learns that Chev has a sensitive side and is trying to leave crime behind for his girlfriend, who is blissfully unaware of his occupation. At one point his adrenalin levels get low so he starts raping his girlfriend amid a huge throng of Asian tourists, who find the scene strangely enthralling, but by the end it isn’t rape…’cause she likes it. I am far from an expert, but each time I have sex I do not have an adrenalin rush immediately afterwards. On the contrary, it’s usually nappy time. Amy Smart (Road Trip) plays the role of Chev’s clueless stoner girlfriend very naturally, but she seems to get that sexual climax will not boost his adrenalin when she provides road head to Chev without the climax. The viewer also gets a pleasant surprise when Efren Ramirez (Pedro from Napoleon Dynamite) shows up as Statham’s very gay sometime spy.

Finally, we find out that Chelios’ supposed employer is behind the Beijing cocktail because a hit Chelios was hired to do on an Asian gang leader didn’t go over very well and now he has to be eliminated. Aha! The joke’s on everybody else because Chev sold out his employer and struck up a deal with the Asians. Cue big fight scene…blood, guts, etc. …but Chelios gets another needle full of the Beijing cocktail during the fight from Verona. No worries…it doesn’t work this time either as Chev chases Verona into a helicopter. In the climactic fight scene Chev exacts his revenge but falls towards his imminent death from a helicopter. Nevertheless, he is able to make a phone call to his girl’s machine and leave a touching message before the splat.

If you like formulaic action films without much suspense, then Crank is for you. Otherwise, by all means avoid it.