Friday, April 17, 2009
Jason Statham's greatness announced itself early in his acting career—88 seconds into his motion picture debut, to be precise, in the opening sequence of Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels (1998). Statham plays Bacon, a small-time criminal peddling stolen merchandise ("Handmade in Italy, hand-stolen in Stepney") on a London street corner. Suddenly, the police show up; Bacon and his accomplice take flight; and then, rounding a rain-slickened corner with a suitcase under his arm, he nearly tips over, performing a ridiculous little shuffle-step at an almost-45-degree angle to the pavement, his feet moving furiously but his forward motion momentarily stalled, like Wile E. Coyote in the instant before he realizes he has run out of clifftop road and is about to plummet 5,000 feet into a canyon. Whereupon Bacon regains his footing, vaults a barrier, and spills the entire contents of his suitcase as he races down a flight of stairs.
This is the essence of Statham-ism, a mix of bionic brute force and slapstick—Robocop meets Keystone Cops. It's a formula that has made Statham the biggest action hero going: Since 2001, Statham star vehicles have grossed $500 million worldwide. Currently, Statham is the face of two hit franchises: The Transporter, whose latest sequel, Transporter 3 (2008), earned more than $100 million, and Crank, whose second installment, Crank: High Voltage, arrives in theaters this Friday with the irresistible tag line "He was dead … But he got better."
