The Transporter Reviews

An outlaw finds his life becoming all the more dangerous when he turns against a gang of criminals in this action drama. Frank Martin (Jason Statham) is a former Special Forces officer who lives on the French Mediterranean and has a lucrative second career as a underworld courier for hire. Martin will deliver anything anywhere, but he has three iron-clad rules - once the plan is in motion it cannot be changed, neither he nor his customers are to ever use their real names, and under no circumstances will he open the package. Martin is hired to make a delivery to a wealthy but unscrupulous American known as Wall Street (Matt Schulze), but after taking possession of the package he realizes that whatever is inside happens to be alive. Breaking his own rule, Martin opens the bag to discover a beautiful Asian woman, Lai (Shu Qi), who is bound and gagged. Lai briefly escapes, but Martin captures her, and delivers her to Wall Street as promised. However, after being given a parcel to deliver by Wall Street, Martin finds out what Wall Street is up to - in partnership with Lai's father Mr. Kwai (Ric Young), Wall Street is part of a scheme to smuggle Asian illegal aliens into France. Martin's conscience gets the better of him, and he sets out to rescue Lai and put Wall Street and Mr. Kwai out of business; however, as if this wasn't enough of a challenge, Martin discovers a French detective, Tarconi (Francois Berleand) has gotten wind of his illegal business. The Transporter was the first English-language feature for Hong Kong-based director Corey Yuen, who along with directing a number of HK action flicks designed fight choreography for several American films.

One of Luc Besson's latest and most ambitious projects was "The Transporter," released in 2002.

I have to admit this is one flick I approached with a very open mind - very open. I mean, I like Jason Statham. I think he's a pretty cool guy and at first, even I questioned his casting as Frank Martin in "The Transporter." But the problem is, and I'm assuming this is the result of the quickly edited action scenes (which were toned down to make the film "PG-13"), he's not being given the room to really be the best he can be.

As the lead character, he's a transporter. He can get you, your associates or your property anywhere, anytime, on time, no questions asked. But you know what? Common sense tells us that it was curiosity that killed the cat, and the cat in this picture thankfully doesn't die some horrible death but instead, curiosity yields him a break - a beautiful woman named Lai (Shu Qi) - bound and gagged, and in the trunk of his BMW.

It's not spoiling much that she and Frank get together and as a result, are forced to do battle with shady and vicious American businessman Wall Street (Matt Schulze) and his army of high-kicking, disposable assassins. There's a little more to the plot and Lai, and the circumstances surrounding her appearance in the trunk of Frank's car, and it involves some smuggling of poor Chinese immigrants from China to Europe, where much of the action takes place.

Speaking of action and there's plenty of it, Statham does display some pretty impressive moves but the frantic editing just doesn't do him justice. He obviously worked out for this part and there are frequent moments when his ripped torso is on display. He also (barely) manages to shy away any possible accusations that he's just a British novelty to American audiences. Director Corey Yuen (whose work on Jet Li's 2001 action film "Kiss of the Dragon" I admired), is behind it and Besson's got a producer credit.

The problem may not be Statham because I think he's a really cool actor with a raspy British accent, but the script is worth some deeper examination by more thoughtful minds. There are plenty of holes and unanswered questions (i.e., the extent of Frank's military training and experiences, Lai and how she wound up with Frank and her quarrelsome relationship with her father who is played by Ric Young, and the plot with the Chinese smuggling).

But why am I making such complaints? "The Transporter" is an action movie; no plot required. Despite some bumps in the road, "The Transporter" is pure action fun from beginning to end

Honestly, I wasn’t sure what to expect from this flick but since I heard a lot of good things about it, I was quite  eager to check it out. First of all, I really loved the introduction. The tone was perfect, Jason Statham was really bad-ass and it was an impressive and very well shot action scene (since it is a Besson production, it wasn’t really surprising). But then, unfortunately, it was the only scene that really impressed me... I mean, the rest of the movie was not bad and fairly entertaining, but honestly, I thought  it was just some generic action stuff which I have already seen 1000 times before. Sure, it was well done but, in my opinion, it was not really exciting and, as a matter of fact, almost boring. It is quite a pity because the whole thing definitely had some potential but, as usual with Luc Besson, they didn’t care much about the story or the concept and just wanted to show some bad-ass action scenes. To conclude, even though it is a decent flick, it is nothing really special but you may end up enjoying it more than I did if you are a huge action movies fan. 

The Transporter movies are definetly one of my favourite action series. Jason Statham I must say is the best, and has been in all his action movies. I can't wait to see from him again!

Even though this compared to #2 isn't as good, I still really enjoyed action movie.