Plot Summary
L.A.–based Englishman Chev Chelios works as a hitman under Don “Carlito” Carlos’s crime empire. Chelios is contracted by Carlito to kill Don Kim, a mafia boss, as members of the Triads have been encroaching on Carlito’s business. Chelios goes to Don Kim and apparently kills him. In the confusion, Ricky Verona, an ambitious small-time criminal, uses the opportunity to conspire with Carlito against Chelios: Verona will kill Chelios so the Triads won’t retaliate, and then take Chelios’s place as Carlito’s newly hired gun.
While Chelios sleeps in his apartment, Verona and his brother Alex, along with several henchmen break into the apartment and inject Chelios with a Chinese synthetic drug, dubbed the Beijing Cocktail, which inhibits the flow of adrenaline, slowing the heart and eventually killing the victim. Chelios wakes to find a recording left by Verona showing what he has done. A furious Chelios calls Doc Miles, a mafia surgeon, and Miles informs Chelios that to survive he must keep his adrenaline pumping through constant excitement and danger and is unsure if the antidote exists. Chelios keeps up his adrenaline through risky and dangerous acts, which include picking fights with other gangsters and police, reckless driving and motorcycling, taking illegal drugs, and having public sex with his girlfriend Eve.
Chelios visits Carlito at his penthouse and asks him to help find an antidote as well as to find and kill Verona and his crew. Carlito says there is no antidote and only confirms that Carlito and Verona are working together. Carlito tells Chelios that he will use his death as a scapegoat against the Chinese. An angered Chelios leaves Carlito’s penthouse to find Verona. Through his street-smart informant, a crossdresser named Kaylo, Chelios finds Alex at a restaurant and unsuccessfully interrogates him about his brother’s whereabouts before dismembering his hand and killing him.
Meet the Cast
Info & Stats
Director:
Mark Neveldine, Brian Taylor
Writers:
Mark Neveldine, Brian Taylor
Stars:
Jason Statham, Amy Smart, Carlos Sanz
Categories:
Action, Thriller, Crime
Budget:
$12,000,000.00
Revenue:
$42,900,000.00
Age: RÂ Â |Â Â Duration: 1h 28m
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