DVD Release Date:  September 8, 2009
Theatrical Release Date:  April 17, 2009
Rating:  R (for frenetic strong bloody violence throughout, crude and graphic sexual content, nudity and pervasive language)
Genre:  Action
Run Time:  96 min.
Directors:  Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor
Cast:  Jason Statham, Amy Smart, Clifton Collins Jr., Efren Ramirez, Bai Ling, David Carradine, Dwight Yoakam

There's so much to be repulsed by in this movie (a noun I use liberally in this case) that it's a little hard to know where to begin.  Summing it up, though, is pretty easy:  Crank: High Voltage is absolutely disgusting.

Like its predecessor Crank, this extreme-action sequel is the twenty-first century equivalent of ‘70s exploitation B-movie cinema—but taken to a whole other graphic level.  Utterly pointless, intentionally ridiculous and very explicit as it revels in sex, guns and blood.  It's not to be taken seriously, but that harmless intent is then used as an excuse to do anything and everything that comes to the sadistically juvenile minds of directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor (makers of the first Crank).  The resulting aesthetic is machismo at its most perverse. 

Apparently picking up where the original left off, Crank: High Voltage follows the adrenaline-charged exploits of Chev Chelios (Jason Statham, star of the Transporter movies), a brash, indestructible hit man in the city of angels.  The film opens after Chelios has survived a fall from an airplane (again, intentionally absurd).  His body has been taken by underworld criminals who want to harvest his organs (while he remains conscious) and sell them on the black market. 

After removing his heart but then replacing it with an artificial one (so as to keep him alive during the rest of the organ removals … I guess), Chelios summons the energy to leap from the surgical table and proceed to kill the people trying to ravage his remains.  His heart, however, has already been taken from the premises, so the rest of the film follows Chelios as he pursues the people who have taken it before it's transplanted into a dying rival gang lord.

His artificial heart—partially charged by a connected box—doesn't have the power needed for Chelios to exert the Red Bull level of energy he needs, which leads to the film's one inspired recurring gag:  Chelios must continually look for various means of giving himself a kick start.  Jumper cables, shock collars, Tasers, and fuse boxes are just a few of the items Chelios jolts himself with along the way, fitting the silliness of the genre perfectly while offering fleeting laughs.