Co-directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor betray their roots in commercials with this nonstop barrage of flashy tricks and breakneck action in which visual and narrative absurdity vie with each other on an insanely epic scale. Trash antihero icon Jason Statham (The Transporter) plays a retired hitman injected with poison. If his adrenaline level falls he'll die - something that must not happen until he's slain the LA crime syndicate boss responsible. To keep his heart rate up he ingests every drug going and, in a hilarious highlight, has public sex in Chinatown with girlfriend Amy Smart. It's Speed with a man instead of a bus, and nothing is sacred or even realistic - from Statham performing motorcycle stunts almost naked to calmly using his mobile while freefalling through the air. As fun bad movies go, this split-screen, hyper-kinetic comic strip revs up the entertainment value to lunatic "anything goes" levels. But taken seriously, it's just a violent and vulgar distraction.

Chev Chelios, a hit man wanting to go straight, lets his latest target slip away. Then he awakes the next morning to a phone call that informs him he has been poisoned and has only an hour to live unless he keeps adrenaline coursing through his body while he searches for an antidote.