As the year 2009 reaches its end in a scant three months, I predict that the media will bombard us with nostalgic looks back at the decade that could not be named and indulge society’s insatiable thirst for list making.  The possibilities are endless--best films of the decade, best novels, best music, worst films--and before I accidentally succumb to the list frenzy, I submit an alternative:  A detailed analysis of just one work that embodies the decade it sprang from.  Not the best, mind you, but an emblematic work, one whose mediocrity actually shines a brighter light on its times than an iconoclastic work of genius ever could. 

This work of art is the movie Crank from 2006.

That’s right, we’re thinking of the same movie.  Crank stars ape-like everyman Jason Statham as Chev Chelios, an alliteratively amoral assassin (or is he?), who runs afoul of a crime lord, who in turn poisons Chev.  The poison does not, however, serve as a device to engage introspection—far from it.  Instead, Chev breaks, as the vernacular says, off the fucking chain, and in doing so provides a subtle commentary on our times. 

As the story progresses, a suitably shady mafia doctor informs Chelios that in order to keep his heart beating he must flood his system with stimulants.  An obliging Chelios chugs Red Bull, takes energy shots, steals hospital drugs, and even uses a defibrillator to fry his heart into submission, all while shooting, killing, maiming, and leaving a trail of destruction at which an atom bomb wouldn’t blush.  As we see Chelios pump himself full of more and more chemicals, the viewer realizes that the divorce between mind and body, body and surroundings, has never been more complete. Chelios’ body is brusquely turned into an agent of destruction against society in general, not just the Hispanic crime syndicate he is supposedly fighting.  Indeed, in an altered mental state induced by constant adrenaline high, Chelios himself is hardly in control.  His body instead serves as a sadistic id, unleashing his most primal drives upon Los Angeles.  Statham plays the character with the fury of a Frankenstein’s monster created in a lab littered with video games, Mountain Dew and porn.  If you need any convincing, consider the touching romance between Chev and his girlfriend Eve (with the amusing reference to primitivism).  As the movie begins, Chelios is a boring boyfriend compared to stripper Eve, but the secret of his job gets out and he soon inculcates her into his glamorous world of death and wanton destruction.  The courtship culminates in a scene where Statham, searching for any rush he can find, bends co-star Amy Smart over a mailbox in the middle of Chinatown and provides the onlookers with an unparalleled feat of cross-cultural exhibitionism.

We are not merely interested in the degree to which Statham and Smart can mimic lower life forms, though.  A glimpse at some of the devices used by the movie show the degree to which this film is planted at the gate to the twenty-first century.  The influence of video games is obvious, but still warrants mention.  Filled with references to classic games, the movie is an almost exact approximation of the experience of playing Grand Theft Auto and trying to get as wanted as possible. Let me assure you, Chelios doesn’t stop until he has all of the stars.  The video game parallel only heightens the visceral thrill of destruction, for it implicates the audience as a guilty party.  More interesting, however, is the simple way in which the filmmakers create the virtual space of Los Angeles, with the internet application Google Earth.  The film periodically expands to show the aerial view of Los Angeles, which Thomas Pynchon famously likened to a circuit board, only to once again zoom in to highlight a new feat of destruction.  Showing Google Earth, complete with copyright, once again forces the viewer’s attention to the extent to which, in this new digital age, our reality is a construct of various technologies.  Chelios, by the amount of crazy shit in his veins, is more a slave to modern society than most of us, because of his reliance on inorganic stimulants—yet he simultaneously transcends the system by attacking it with the almost religious fervor of barbarians ransacking the libraries of Rome. 

Therein lies the contradiction that draws me to this movie as an emblem of our waning decade.  The movie acknowledges that we are living in an exceedingly complex, postmodern world, but insists on confronting it in only the most crass and primitive ways possible.  This is the great and horrible truth of the film. Consider that this was a decade in which we responded to international terrorism with cowboy swagger and ground troops in an unrelated country while alienating international allies and fomenting ideological hatred;  consider that this was a decade in which we did “a helluva job” in responding to one of the deadliest hurricanes of all time by sending Lunchables to the Superdome a week later;  consider that this was a decade in which our soldiers, our white paladins of the forces of good in that den of heathens in the Middle East, gleefully pointed to their accomplishments in rivaling the Egyptians four millennia prior as they constructed a pyramid of nothing but naked human flesh.  Consider all of these things, and tell me that Crank is not an eerily prescient oracle of our times. 

One of the many pleasures of the film (for it is a very enjoyable film) is the ending.  Falling out of a helicopter without a parachute and thus freed from the technology that enables and imprisons his existence, Chev is provided with a moment of clarity in which to confront his death.  Nothing can be heard as he plummets towards Los Angeles. The din of the street, gunshots, and orgasms are all left behind for the deafening sound of rushing air.  If only we all had the opportunity to greet our mortality head-on (neglecting for the moment that Chev’s lifeless corpse was unceremoniously scraped off the pavement for a sequel).  Chev muses on whether he should have allowed more time “to stop and smell the roses” as he reaches a state of beatific indifference toward the world he is about to depart.  A smirk is on his face as he plunges from the heavens back to the unforgiving pavement of the modern world, the smirk of the Viking invader, burning a monastery, approaching Valhalla’s gate.   

Joe Blessing is a contributor to TDI.