Review: The Transporter

Jason Statham stars as a former Special Forces guy now working on the sleazier side of things delivering packages for shady underworld types around Europe. He even dabbles in a bit of getaway driving in the film’s amusing post-bank robbery opening scene. Predominantly residing in the South of France, he’s a gruff, no-nonsense, ask-no-questions kinda guy who has his own set of rules to do business by. No names, for instance. No looking at the package, as well. He’s about to break that one, though when a he opens the trunk of the car and the zipped-up bag to find a bound and gagged young woman (Shu Qi), the package he is to deliver to a sleazy human trafficker (Matt Schulze). He nonetheless does deliver the package, and Schulze gives Statham a package of his own to deliver. Unfortunately, when Statham takes a rare pit-stop along the way, the package explodes, thankfully with no one in the car at the time. Meanwhile, he has rescued the girl from the sleazebag human trafficker and taken her home. From this moment on, Statham sees himself the target of all manner of nasty-types, including the girl’s own father, a crook played by Ric Young. Somewhere in all of this, the gorgeous Shu Qi starts to slowly melt Statham’s heart of ice. Awwww.

 

I was a late convert to Jason Statham as an action star (mostly because I was underwhelmed by his work in “The Mean Machine”, “The One”, and “The Italian Job”), so I didn’t fully see this 2002 first starring vehicle for the British hard man (albeit a ‘former male model and qualified diver’ British hard man, just sayin’…) until just recently. It’s completely stupid and entertaining enough on that level. It’s probably one of Statham’s better films, if not up to the quality of the insane “Crank” films or “The Expendables 2 & 3”, though it utilises his talents a lot better than the “Expendables” franchise.

 

It also contains one of Statham’s better acting performances, not an easy distinction to make with Statham, mind you, as he’s very much the same in everything, but I feel it’s true nonetheless. He actually shows a bit of softness in this one, which I rather liked. I have absolutely no idea what accent he was going for, however, which seems to be an occasional issue with Statham in films. It’s called being lazy and half-arsed, I believe. I actually thought villain Matt Schulze sounded a bit Eurotrash at times, but apparently he’s an American playing an American, so there you go. He’s quirky and interesting, I’ll give him that, and would be the best thing in the film if he were in it a lot more. Taiwanese star Shu Qi gets a bad rap online, rather unfairly I think. She’s gorgeous and her command of the English language isn’t that bad. She’s pretty good here, as usual, if you ask me. Ric Young is his usual fine self as another villain (and Ms. Shu Qi’s jerk of a father to boot).

 

The film comes advertised with Luc Besson (director of “The Fifth Element” and “The Family”, co-writer of the not bad “3 Days to Kill”) as EP, Corey Yuen (“So Close”, “DOA: Dead or Alive”) as director, and bizarrely Louis Leterier (“Unleashed”, “Clash of the Titans”, the highly underrated “Now You See Me”) as ‘artistic director’, which may be the most pretentious credit I’ve seen since Eddie Murphy credited himself about a hundred times for “Harlem Nights”. My guess is Mr. Yuen did all the action stuff, and Letterier did all the mundane/dialogue-driven stuff. All three of those names, however suggest style over substance, which is what’s really important to note here. This ain’t a thinking man’s action movie, it’s a bunch of cool shit done in cool fashion that you pretty much forget all about when it’s over. However, one can’t deny that it provides the goods in the moment. It’s fun. Dumb fun, but fun is fun, no matter what variety it comes in.

 

Things start well with an amusingly dark moment of comedy as a ‘job’ goes awry and Statham’s complaining about a change in the plans (four passengers instead of three. Guess how that works out?). The subsequent car chase is pretty solid too, even if the music score by Stanley Clarke (“Into the Sun”, “Undisputed”, “Soul Men”) is typically cheap, Eurotrash techno shit. It’s definitely in action mode that this film scores highest. Statham’s a brutally angry fucker in this, even engaging in some martial arts for the film. There’s a terrific, ricockulous fight scene in the space between two shipping containers, that is the very tight space between two shipping containers. That was definitely something to see, as was the bit where Statham takes out a small army on a fucking bus. A not terribly roomy bus. It’s pretty cool stuff, if typically empty from something with the name Luc Besson attached. But vacuousness is not really a buzzkill here, if there’s any real problem with the film is that plot-wise it’s a bit too clichéd, perhaps. You’ve seen this kind of thing before and since. Still, it’s nice and short and you can see why and how it made Statham an action star.

 

Totally ridiculous, not exactly good in the traditional sense, but diverting dumb fun. It’s a bit like another Besson project, the equally dumb and trashy actioner “From Paris With Love”, or even Yuen’s own “So Close” (also featuring Shu Qi) and “DOA: Dead or Alive”, in that sense. I kinda liked this one, not that much mind you, but it’s very, very light entertainment. The script comes from Luc Besson himself and Robert Mark Kamen, of all people (“The Karate Kid”, the stirring “The Power of One”).

 

Rating: B-