If you can imagine Run Lola Run on speed and without arty pretension, you might be ready for the style of Crank. Some have compared it to Speed, but that’s a disservice to both movies. Though Crank at times reminded me of many different films, its style is all its own. Nothing looks or sounds quite like it.

The plot is simple and derivative. Gang employee Chev Chelios (Jason Statham) wakes up to find a message on his television screen from gang punk Verona (Jose Pablo Cantillo): While he slept, Chelios was injected with a "Beijing Cocktail," a poison that will render him dead in one hour. Tough guy Chelios is not about to take this lying down. He figures an hour is time enough to find the guys who killed him and wipe them out. But the poison has slowed his heartbeat; to stay on top of things, he must keep his adrenaline pumping. He takes off on a race across town that leaves a few people dead and destroys thousands of dollars’ worth of property -- and presents a great opportunity for some awesome stunts.

The plot is short on character development, and we don’t know why Verona wants Chelios dead until halfway through the film’s 85 minutes. Crank is more about action and style than substance, and that action is nonstop -- like the recent Running Scared times ten. It’s greatly helped along by Paul Haslinger’s pounding, take-no-prisoners rock score. The film’s style is cinematic to the core, and writer-directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor pull out every trick in the book: split screen, film distortion, slow motion, fast motion, freeze frame, spiraling handheld shots, jump cuts, animated views of the heart, subtitles, location signs, and a lot more -- and, often, all of that within a minute or two.

At midpoint, the film takes a twist into outrageous black comedy. But that’s the joy of Crank -- you never know what you’ll find around the next corner. When Chelios shows up at his girlfriend’s apartment, things get downright funny, sometimes in a slapstick Marx Brothers vein. As Chelios shoots mobsters right and left, Eve (Amy Smart), a classic dumb blonde, is oblivious to the bloodletting as she picks up items that have spilled from her purse, makes dumb remarks, and asks inane questions. The cinematic style, too, becomes droll. When one character speaks to another in a foreign language, subtitles appear on the screen; when the camera reverses to the other character the subtitle is still there, in reverse. From that point on, the movie is a violent black comedy in graphic-novel style, and its final shot is a classic. Quentin Tarantino will love it.

Jason Statham, his deadpan face decorated with three-day stubble, is ideal in the lead role, as is Amy Smart in hers. Add Dwight Yoakam as Doc, Chelios’ half-loony doctor, pepper liberally with ace character actors, and you have a cast that doesn’t miss a beat or ever seem out of step. If you go to see Crank expecting no more than action-adventure entertainment, have a stomach for over-the-top bloodletting (there are severed limbs and god knows how many quarts of blood), and can surrender without asking questions, you’ll get a good ride out of this inventive, one-of-a-kind flick.

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