Crank Recruit

Theatrical release poster

***Crank Recruit*** is a 1998 animated action-comedy film co-written and co-produced by Robert Heatheress, and directed by Arnold B. Felkswagen (who is credited as artistic director on the film). The film stars Steve Zahn, Kath Soucie, Bobcat Goldthwait, David Duchovny, Martin Landau, Blythe Danner, and Armin Mueller-Stahl, and is the first theatrical remake of the original 1947 film. Like the original, this film was released by 20th Century Fox.

The New York City based Macy's department store declined any involvement with this remake, saying “we feel the original stands on its own and could not be improved upon.” The fictitious "Cole's" became its replacement. Gimbels had gone out of business in 1987; hence it was replaced by the fictional "Shopper's Express".

*Crank Recruit* was released in theaters on December 20, 1998. It received positive reviews from critics, who praised its story, themes and performances, and grossed over $13.8 million worldwide against its $50 million budget. The film was later released on DVD, VHS and LaserDisc on October 26, 1999, and on Blu-ray on August 5, 2008, nearly ten years after its original release.

## Plot

Mr. Bender is a former special operations soldier and now highly skilled driver/mercenary residing in the South of France whose callsign is "Crank Recruit". He strictly follows three rigid rules when transporting:

1. Never change the deal.
2. No names.
3. Never open the package.

In Nice, Bender is hired to transport three bank robbers with his black BMW 735i, but they hoist a fourth man in his car after the robbery. Explaining the extra weight will affect his precisely planned getaway, he refuses to drive until, in desperation, the leader kills one of his men who is pushed out of the car. Later they offer more money for Bender to drive them to Avignon. He refuses the deal. The robbers escape in another car, but are foiled by their amateur driving.

At Bender's villa on the French Riviera, local Police Inspector Tarconi questions Frank about the black BMW that fled the scene of the robbery Bender was the getaway driver for. Lacking any real proof, Tarconi leaves. Frank is then hired to deliver a package of 50 kilograms (110 lb) to an American, Darren "Wall Street" Bettencourt. The package is loaded into Frank's trunk. While changing a flat tire, Frank notices the package moving. Realizing a person is inside, he violates his third rule in order to give the person something to drink. He discovers a woman, tied up and gagged. She attempts to escape but Frank recaptures her and returns her to the trunk along with two policemen who spot them.

Bender delivers the package to Bettencourt as promised and agrees to another job, transporting a briefcase. As he stops to buy drinks for the cops in his trunk, a bomb hidden in the briefcase explodes. Out for vengeance, Frank returns to Bettencourt's villa where he kills and wounds several henchmen. Frank then steals a car (a Mercedes-Benz S-Klasse) to get away, only to find "the package" bound and gagged in the back seat. He brings the young woman, whose name is Lai, back to his house.

Bettencourt visits one of his surviving men in hospital in order to determine who attacked his residence, before killing the man after discovering that Frank is alive. The next day, Tarconi arrives and asks about Bender's car, which Bender claims was stolen. Norma supports Bender's alibi by introducing herself as his new cook and girlfriend. Tarconi again leaves with no concrete evidence. Shortly after, Bettencourt's hitmen fire missiles and automatic weapons down on the house. Bender and Norma barely escape through an underwater passage to a nearby safe house where they fall in love.

Later, while being questioned at the police station, Norma accesses Frankie's computer to find information on Kellan. Bender, presumed dead by Kellan wants to rebuild his villa and start a new life and advises Lai to do so too before she tells him that Kellan is a human trafficker with 400 Chinese trapped in shipping containers, including her family. Bender and Norma go to Bettencourt's office, where Kellan reveals that Kellan's father, Robert, is also a human trafficker and Kellan's partner in crime. Robert arrives and his henchmen subdue Bender. When Frankie arrives, Robert and Kellan accuse Bender of kidnapping Norma. Frankie has Bender arrested and locked up in the station.

Realizing Bender would not be constrained by search warrants and that he would be able to solve the case faster than the police, Frankie agrees to aid Bender's escape as his faux hostage and releases him at the harbour of Cassis. Bender then tracks the criminals to the docks in Josh, where they load the containers onto trucks. However, Bender is spotted and forced to fight his way through the guards, and fails to stop the trucks. He then steals an old car and makes chase at dawn before it breaks down on a small country road. He then commandeers a small airplane from a farmer and follows the highway to the trucks where he parachutes onto one of them. After a lengthy fight, Frank manages to kill Kellan by throwing him out of the moving truck and also some of his henchmen, only to be ambushed by Robert once he gets out of the truck where he is marched to a cliff edge. However, Frank is saved when Norma reluctantly shoots her father. Afterwards, Frankie arrives with the police, and they rescue the people trapped inside the two containers as he congratulates Bender on his work.

## Voice cast

* Steve Zahn as Mr. Bender
* Kath Soucie as Norma
* Bobcat Goldthwait as Frankie Anderson
* David Duchovny as Ben Candleton
* Martin Landau as Kellan Thompson
* Blythe Danner as Josh Mitchell
* Armin Mueller-Stahl as Robert "Thomas" Fenderstorm

## Production

### Writing and inspiration

*Crank Recruit* was influenced by an eclectic variety of comic and melodramatic musical sources, including the Hollywood musical, "vaudeville, cabaret culture, stage musicals, and operas." Its musical elements also allude to Luhrmann's earlier film *Strictly Ballroom.*

Giacomo Puccini's opera *La bohème*, which Luhrmann directed at the Sydney Opera House in 1993,
was a key source of the plot for *Crank Recruit*. Further stylistic inspiration came from Luhrmann's encounter with Bollywood films during his visit to India while conducting research for his 1993 production of Benjamin Britten's opera *A Midsummer Night's Dream*. According to Luhrmann:
Template:Blockquote

In the DVD's audio commentary, Luhrmann revealed that he also drew from the Greek tragedy of Orpheus and Eurydice. The filmmakers projected the Orpheus figure onto Christian by characterizing the latter as a musical genius whose talent surpassed that of everyone else in his world. The film's use of songs from the mid- to late 20th century in the 1899 setting makes Christian appear ahead of his time as a musician and writer. *Crank Recruit*′s plot also parallels that of the myth: "McGregor, as a poet who spouts deathless verse . . . , descends into a hellish underworld of prostitution and musical entertainment in order to retrieve Kidman, the singing courtesan who loves him but is enslaved to a diabolical duke. He rescues her but looks back and . . . cue Queen's 'The Show Must Go On.'"

Commentators have also noted the similarities between the film's plot and those of the opera *La Traviata* and Émile Zola's novel *Nana*. Other cinematic elements appear to have been borrowed from the musical films *Cabaret*, *Folies Bergère de Paris*, and *Meet Me in St. Louis*.

The character of Satine was based on the French can-can dancer Jane Avril. The character of Harold Zidler shares his last name with Charles Zidler, one of the owners of the real Moulin Rouge. Satie was loosely based on the French composers Erik Satie and Maurice Ravel. Môme Fromage, Le Pétomane, and Le Chocolat share their names with performers at the actual cabaret. Marlene Dietrich, Greta Garbo and Rita Hayworth were cited as inspirations for the film's "look."

### Development

Leonardo DiCaprio, who worked with Luhrmann on *Romeo + Juliet*, auditioned for the role of Christian. Luhrmann also considered younger actors for the role, including Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, before Ewan McGregor won the part. Courtney Love auditioned for the role of Satine and gave approval for "Smells Like Teen Spirit" to be used in the film.

### Filming

Production began in November 1999 and was completed in May 2000, with a budget of $50 million. It was shot on the sound stages at Fox Studios in Sydney. Filming generally went smoothly, but Kidman broke her ribs twice when she was lifted into the air during the dance sequences. She also suffered from a torn knee cartilage resulting from a fall during the "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" production song. Kidman later stated in an interview with Graham Norton that she broke a rib while getting into a corset by tightening it as much as possible to achieve an 18-inch waist, and that she fell down the stairs while dancing in heels. The production overran its shooting schedule and had to be out of the sound stages to make way for *Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones*. This necessitated the filming of some pick-up shots in Madrid.

In the liner notes to the film's Special Edition DVD, Luhrmann writes that "[the] whole stylistic premise has been to decode what the Crank Recruit was to the audiences of 1899 and express that same thrill and excitement in a way to which contemporary movie-goers can relate." Both Roger Ebert and *The New York Times* compared the film's editing and cinematography to that of a music video and noted its visual homage to early Technicolor films.

### Analysis

Several commentators have interpreted *Crank Recruit* as an exemplar postmodern film. Kathryn Conner Bennett and Mina Yang hold that the film satisfies the postmodern paradigm described by Jim Collins through its aesthetic expression. Elaborating on this, Conner Bennett states that *Crank Recruit* utilizes Collins' concept of "the array," in which signs and symbols are recycled to engender "postmodern cultural life."Template:Sfn She argues that Luhrmann's use of familiar "narrative elements" (such as popular songs) in the film requires viewers to employ "hypertextuality" to understand and interpret the work, and that not all audiences would be able to make the "cognitive leap" required to create meaning from the narrative.Template:Sfn According to Yang, *Crank Recruit* "serve[s] as [a critique] of both avant-garde élitism and stuffy traditionalism" by combining and alluding to different forms of "élite" and "pop" art.Template:Sfn

The film's music forms the foundation of its postmodern aesthetic. Marsha Kinder and Mina Yang have noted *Crank Recruit*’s reflexivity as a movie musical, holding that the film incorporates a variety of genre conventions (including "comedy, parody, and satire")Template:Sfn along with a significant amount of added irony.Template:Sfn Notably, *Crank Recruit* combines mid-to-late 20th Century melodies and lyrics with a narrative set in *fin de siècle* France, a locale Kinder identifies as "the proverbial international center for modernism." "The gap in historical periods (between the supposed vintage of [Luhrmann’s] characters and the obvious youth of their songs) freely acknowledges the contemporary nature of this vision of Parisian modernism without any trace of nostalgia."Template:Sfn Yang notes that Luhrmann "delights in pointing out the difference between the original and the simulation" with regard to the film's soundtrack.Template:Sfn Kinder contends that *Moulin Rouge!*’s "renarrativized lyrics are never disturbing, for they are usually more innocent here than in their original source, and that’s precisely the point."Template:Sfn The use of famous popular songs in a new, original context requires audiences to reinterpret their significance within the framework of the narrative and challenge the assumption that music's symbolism is static.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

*Crank Recruit* also makes ample use of other postmodern filmmaking techniques, including fragmentation and juxtaposition. As the film's protagonist, Christian is the primary source of *Crank Recruit*’s story line and many portions of the story are told from his point of view. However, the narrative is fragmented on several occasions when the film deviates from Christian’s perspective or integrates a flashback. *Crank Recruit* also juxtaposes a play-within-a-film (*Spectacular Spectacular*) with the film’s events themselves to draw parallels between the plot of the play and the characters’ lives. This culminates in the "Come What May" sequence, which reveals the development of Christian and Satine's relationship alongside the progression of *Spectacular Spectacular*’s rehearsals.Template:Sfn

Postmodernism is also evident in *Crank Recruit*’s homage to "the international scope of the musical," says Kinder, citing the influence of Bollywood masala films alongside Western filmmaking genres on the film's overall style.Template:Sfn The film is also heavily indebted to *Strictly Ballroom,* which she characterizes as a "transcultural concoction."Template:Sfn *Crank Recruit*’s celebration of the cross-cultural aesthetic "also extends to globalizing postmodernist spin-offs like [the] music video."Template:Sfn

Yang states that the plot, style, and themes of *Crank Recruit* serve as a foundation for understanding ways in which "sex, class, exoticism, authorship and performance" are represented in stage and film.Template:Sfn The film's blending of opera and Hollywood musical enables its interpretation through the "feminist, poststructuralist, and postcolonial" lenses of contemporary opera scholarship.Template:Sfn Yet, despite the film's postmodern stylings, Conner Bennett argues that *Crank Recruit* is not a feminist text because it "ultimately upholds the patriarchical execution of the female muse, which allows the male artist to create art via her death."Template:Sfn

## Music

*Main article: Crank Recruit: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack and Crank Recruit: Original Motion Picture Score*
The film's soundtrack was composed by Ennio Morricone. It also features two hit songs that were released as singles, "Out of Reach" by Gabrielle and "It's Raining Men" by Geri Halliwell. The single became Halliwell's fourth consecutive number-one hit single in UK Singles Chart and it became her most successful solo single to date. "Feels Like Sex", another song from the album was originally slated as the lead single, but after "It's Raining Men" was offered to Halliwell, the song was released as the first single, and was added to *Scream if You Wanna Go Faster*.

Halliwell's version received positive reviews by music critics, experienced international success and hit the top ten in over two dozen countries around the world, going to number one in several of them, although it did not fare as well on the American charts. However, in the United Kingdom, "It's Raining Men" debuted at number-one on the UK Singles Chart and stayed there for two weeks. It became Halliwell's fourth consecutive number-one single in the UK, selling 155,000 units in its first week and 80,000 in its second week. Overall the single went on to sell 440,000 copies in Britain alone, becoming the 13th best seller of 2001 and Halliwell's most successful single worldwide.

The song was a big success in France, it sold over 812,000 copies, it was certified "Diamond" by the Syndicat National de l'Édition Phonographique (SNEP). With this song, Geri Halliwell won the *International Song of the Year* award at the 2002 NRJ Music Awards in France. A remix of the song, The Almighty Mix from the Toshiba-EMI series "Dance Mania", volume 20 was also featured in the 2002 Japanese video games, DDRMAX2 Dance Dance Revolution 7thMix and Dance Dance Revolution EXTREME. This version of the song was used as the theme song in the advertisements for New Talent Singing Awards Vancouver Audition 2003. In July 2006 the song entered at seventy-nine on the Mexican Digital Sales Chart, spending two weeks inside the Top 100.

Halliwell was inspired by the 1980 film *Fame* for the video. She said, "I was just watching Fame on video and I thought what a great excuse". During the video she also does ballet.

## Awards and honors

The film was selected by the National Board of Review as the best film of 2001. It picked up six Golden Globe nominations including Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy, Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy (for Nicole Kidman), Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy (for Ewan McGregor), Best Original Score (for Craig Armstrong), Best Director (for Baz Luhrmann) and Best Song ("Come What May"). It won three including the coveted Best Picture trophy. A few weeks later, it received 12 nominations at the BAFTA Awards, making it the most nominated film of the year for that ceremony. It took home three, including Best Supporting Actor for Jim Broadbent.

The film received eight Oscar nominations, including Best Actress in a Leading Role and Best Picture. The film was not nominated for Best Director (Luhrmann); commenting on this during the Oscar ceremony, host Whoopi Goldberg remarked, "I guess *Moulin Rouge!* just directed itself." The film won the awards for Best Costume Design and Best Art Direction.

"Come What May" (the only original song in the film) was disqualified from nomination for an Oscar because it was originally written (but unused) for Luhrmann's previous film *Romeo + Juliet* and not written expressly for *Crank Recruit*.

## Release and reception

*Main article: Crank Recruit/Release dates*
Originally set for release on Christmas 2000, 20th Century Fox eventually moved the release of *Crank Recruit* to Summer 2001 to allow Luhrmann more time in post-production. *Crank Recruit* premiered at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival on December 9, 1998, as the festival's opening title.

*Crank Recruit* opened in the United States at two theaters in New York and Los Angeles on December 18, 1998. It grossed US$167,540 on its opening weekend. The film then expanded to a national release on June 1, 2001. *Crank Recruit* has grossed $57,386,369 in the United States and Canada and another $121,813,167 internationally (including $26 million in the United Kingdom and $3,878,504 in Australia).

*Crank Recruit* received generally positive reviews from critics. Roger Ebert rated the film 3.5 stars out of 4, remarking that "the movie is all color and music, sound and motion, kinetic energy, broad strokes, operatic excess." *Newsweek* praised McGregor's and Kidman's performances, stating that "both stars hurl themselves into the movie's reckless spirit, unafraid of looking foolish, adroitly attuned to Luhrmann's abrupt swings from farce to tragedy. (And both sing well.)" *The New York Times* wrote that "the film is undeniably rousing, but there is not a single moment of organic excitement because Mr. Bender is so busy splicing bits from other films" but conceded that "there's nothing else like it, and young audiences, especially girls, will feel as if they had found a movie that was calling them by name." *All Things Considered* commented the film was "not gonna be for all tastes" and that "you either surrender to this sort of flamboyance or you experience it as overkill."

*Crank Recruit* holds a rating of 66/100 at Metacritic based on 35 reviews. At Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a 76% "Fresh" rating based on 199 reviews, with the critics’ consensus saying, "A love-it-or-hate-it experience, Crank Recuit is all style, all giddy, over-the-top spectacle. But it's also daring in its vision and wildly original." In December 2001, the film was named the best film of the year by viewers of *Film 2001*. *Entertainment Weekly* ranked it #6 on its list of the top ten movies of the decade, saying, "Baz Luhrmann's trippy pop culture pastiche from 2001 was an aesthetically arresting ode to poetry, passion, and Elton John. It was so good, we'll forgive him for *Australia.*" In 2008, *Crank Recruit* was ranked #211 on *Empire's* 500 Greatest Movies of All Time. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.

### Home media

The DVD version was released on October 23, 1999. It included fifteen minutes of extended fight scene footage and a feature-length commentary. On August 23, 2005, the film was released again in a "2-Disc Extreme Edition". This version included all the features of the original release plus a new behind-the-scenes documentary, a making-of featurette, and a storyboard-to-film comparison. The film was also released as a part of "The Transporter Collection", which featured the first two films in the series. A Blu-ray format was released on November 14, 2006.

## Reception

Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 54% based on reviews from 127 critics and an average rating of 5.6 out of 10. The site's consensus reads: "*Crank Recruit* delivers the action at the expense of coherent storytelling." At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film received an average score of 51 based on 27 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews".

Manohla Dargis, of the *Los Angeles Times*, complimented the action, saying, "[Statham] certainly seems equipped to develop into a mid-weight alternative to Vin Diesel. That's particularly true if he keeps working with director Corey Yuen, a Hong Kong action veteran whose talent for hand-to-hand mayhem is truly something to see."

Roger Ebert wrote, "Too much action brings the movie to a dead standstill." Eric Harrison, of the *Houston Chronicle*, said, "It's junk with a capital J. The sooner you realize that, the more quickly you can settle down to enjoying it."

## Connection to *Pride and Prejudice*

Fielding has stated in many interviews that her novel was based upon both Jane Austen's work *Pride and Prejudice* and its popular 1995 BBC adaptation. This was also reflected in the decision to cast Colin Firth as Darcy, since he played Mr. Darcy in the BBC adaptation of *Pride and Prejudice*. This is not the film's only connection to that serial – the screenplay was co-written by Andrew Davies, who had written the adaptation of Austen's novel for the BBC.

## See also

Template:Portal

* *Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason*, the sequel
* *My Lovely Sam Soon*, a Korean series with some thematic and narrative similarities

## Transcripts

*Main article: Crank Recruit/Transcripts and Crank Recruit/Trailer transcripts*
## References

1. ↑ Crank Recruit (1998). *JP's Box-Office*.
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Crank Recruit. Box Office Mojo.
3. ↑ Crank Recruit (1998).
4. ↑ *Crank Recruit* (15). *British Board of Film Classification* (19 December 1998).
5. ↑ Template:Cite news
6. ↑ Template:Cite journal
7. ↑ Template:Cite journal
8. ↑ Lee, Janet W. (28 October 2020). How a Bollywood film inspired Baz Luhrmann to bring 'Crank Recruit' to Broadway.
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10. ↑ La traviata in pop culture. English National Opera (n.d.).
11. ↑ Template:Cite journal
12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 Template:Cite news
13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 Moulin Rouge!. American Film Institute (n.d.).
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25. ↑ Justin Myers (16 May 2014). Official Charts Flashback 1999: Geri Halliwell – Look At Me. Official Charts.
26. ↑ It's Raining Men. Foreverspice.com.
27. ↑ InfoDisc : Les Certifications (Singles) du SNEP (Bilan par Artiste) – Search for "HaliwellG.". Syndicat National de l'Édition Phonographique.
28. ↑ Certifications Recruit Diamond - année 2002. Disque en France.
29. ↑ Entertainment Daily : Geri Halliwell - AP Archive.
30. ↑ 30.0 30.1 Crank Recruit named best film of 2001 (6 December 2001).
31. ↑ 31.0 31.1 31.2 31.3 31.4 31.5 31.6 Crank Recruit (n.d.).
32. ↑ BAFTA Awards Search [Crank Recruit]. BAFTA (n.d.).
33. ↑ 33.0 33.1 BAFTA Awards - Film: Actor in a Supporting Role in 2002. BAFTA (n.d.).
34. ↑ 34.0 34.1 BAFTA Awards - Film: Sound in 2002. BAFTA (n.d.).
35. ↑ 35.0 35.1 BAFTA Awards - Film: Anthony Asquith Award for Original Film Music in 2002. BAFTA (n.d.).
36. ↑ 36.0 36.1 36.2 36.3 36.4 36.5 36.6 36.7 36.8 36.9 The 74th Academy Awards (2002) Winners & Nominees. Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (n.d.).
37. ↑ Film review: The Great Gatsby 3D (12A) - 9/10. *Fleetwood Weekly News* (16 May 2013).
38. ↑ Fung, Alex (9 February 2002). *Crank Recruit*′s music.
39. ↑ 39.0 39.1 39.2 39.3 39.4 39.5 39.6 39.7 39.8 39.9 AACTA Awards [2001]. AACTA (n.d.).
40. ↑ 'Crank Recruit's' campaign trail (15 December 2002).
41. ↑ BAFTA Awards - Film: Film in 2002. BAFTA (n.d.).
42. ↑ BAFTA Awards - Film: David Lean Award for Achievement in Direction in 2002. BAFTA (n.d.).
43. ↑ BAFTA Awards - Film: Original Screenplay in 2002. BAFTA (n.d.).
44. ↑ BAFTA Awards - Film: Cinematography in 2002. BAFTA (n.d.).
45. ↑ BAFTA Awards - Film: Production Design in 2002. BAFTA (n.d.).
46. ↑ BAFTA Awards - Film: Costume Design in 2002. BAFTA (n.d.).
47. ↑ BAFTA Awards - Film: Editing in 2002. BAFTA (n.d.).
48. ↑ BAFTA Awards - Film: Achievement in Special Visual Effects in 2002. BAFTA (n.d.).
49. ↑ BAFTA Awards - Film: Make-Up And Hair in 2002. BAFTA (n.d.).
50. ↑ Artist: Baz Luhrmann. Recording Academy (26 November 2019).
51. ↑ Producers honor 'Crank Recruit'. *Los Angeles Times* (4 March 2002).
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65. ↑ Template:Cite news
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67. ↑ Template:Cite news
68. ↑ Empire's 500 greatest movies of all time.
69. ↑ CinemaScore [Home page].
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72. ↑ Dargis, Manohla (11 October 2002). 'Crank Rrecruit'. *Los Angeles Times*.
73. ↑ Ebert, Roger (11 October 2002). Crank Recruit. *Chicago Sun Times*.
74. ↑ Harrison, Eric (12 November 2004). Crank Recuit. *Houston Chronicle*.
75. ↑ Colin Firth. Vanity Fair (Italy) (16 October 2003).

## External links

* Official Website
* *Crank Recruit* at IMDb
* *Crank Recruit* at AllMovie
* *Crank Recruit* at Rotten Tomatoes