Crank | 2006

The locations for Crank are scattered around Los Angeles, mainly Downtown, as hitman Chev Chelios (Jason Statham) is pumped full of ‘Beijing Cocktail’, which will kill him if he doesn’t keep his adrenaline level high. It’s a great concept but, despite the stunts and the frantic editing, Crank never quite achieves the narrative drive to make it a cardiac Speed.

Discovering his predicament, Chelios roars out of his garage, west along East 3rd Street, past the solid, four-square deco apartment block 701 East 3rd Street at South Alameda Street, just east of downtown. With a happy disregard for the city’s geography, he drives over the Sixth Street Bridge – to the east, before arriving in Willowbrook, South Central.

The black bikers’ club, ‘Sin City Deciples’, where Chelios kicks off a fight to keep up his excitement level, is 11855-11857 South Main Street, at West 118th Place, in Willowbrook, south Los Angeles, near the Century Freeway and Harbor Freeway interchange.

The mall through which Chelios races to avoid the cops, before leaving his car on the escalator, is Montebello Mall, 2134 Montebello Town Center Drive, Montebello, a few miles southeast of downtown LA.

He picks up the cab with the Arabic driver on Halldale Avenue at West Adams Boulevard, and heads east on Adams. The convenience store he robs for energy drinks is Amin’s Oils, 2603 South Normandie Avenue at West Adams, before demanding to be taken to ‘Beverly Hills’, to confront Carlito (Carlos Sanz).

Carlito’s rooftop pool is actually atop the Andaz West Hollywood (which you probably know better as the West Hollywood Hyatt), 8401 Sunset Boulevard, West Hollywood. It”s the pool around which the band is interviewed in This Is Spinal Tap, and the hotel plays itself as its earlier incarnation as the notorious ‘Riot House’ in Almost Famous.

Chelios tails the brother of the devious Verona (Jose Pablo Cantillo), and hacks of his hand with a meat cleaver, at The Prince, 3198 West Seventh Street at South Catalina Street, Koreatown. The restaurant was previously seen in Roman Polanski classic Chinatown, and more recently in in Jason Reitman’s wickedly funny Thank You For Smoking.

Chelios sees himself on the news broadcast in the shop window at 700 Wilshire Boulevard, and steals the motorcycle cop’s bike, at the junction of Wilshire Boulevard and Hope Street – which you might recognise as the spot where the team gathers in Christopher Nolan’s Inception.

He takes off across the Sixth Street Bridge, before – inexplicably – heading east on Wilshire through MacArthur Park then along Weyburn Avenue, way over in Westwood Village, before performing the bike-stand going up and down Westwood Boulevard and Gayley Avenue.

The stylish pink apartment building of Chelios’ girlfriend, Eve (Amy Smart), is 701 South Oxford Avenue at West Seventh Street in Koreatown.

To keep his excitement level up, Chelios’ only option is a bout of public sex, in the heart of Chinatown. Well, no. Permission was refused for the raunchy scene, so ‘Chinatown’ was recreated down in San Pedro.

Chelios finds out that Carlito was behind everything in Don Kim’s sweatshop at ‘Fifth and Alameda’, which was the old Barker Bros Warehouse (a couple of blocks to the east) at 530 South Hewitt Street at Palmetto Street, in the industrial area east of downtown. The old warehouse has since had a smart makeover to become studios and apartments.

The excruciatingly trendy (and fictitious) ‘Lint Hotel’ is clearly inspired by the Standard Hotel, 550 South Flower Street, even down to the upside-down logo. You can glimpse the real hotel in Michael Mann’s Collateral.

The climactic shootout on its roof is an elaborate set, which was built on the California Bank & Trust Building, 550 South Hope Street, with its convenient helipad.

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