“The Transporter” (20th Century Fox)
“The Transporter” is one of those action packed movies that is supposed to be so exciting you won’t worry it has no plot. And for a while in this movie you don’t. But after an hour of being confused by what is going on, on screen, the audience begins to get irritated. And by movie’s end all the good will established by the action has been washed away by anger at the incomprehensible screenplay.
In the film Jason Statham plays a man named Frank who provides the service of transporting people and things with no questions asked. He is very good at his job and makes a nice living doing it. The movie starts off with him transporting some men and money from a bank robbery to a designated location. This is an action packed sequence which gets the film off to a rousing start.
Later Frank is hired to transport a package from one place to another. It is a large bag which is placed in his trunk. Along the way he opens the trunk and then opens the bag. In it he finds a woman named Lai (Shu Qi) and that is when his big troubles begin.
The rest of the movie has Frank and Lai dodging bullets, fists and missiles. Frank is adept at taking on ten or more men at one time in hand to hand combat. The question is – why is it always hand to hand combat Why don’t they shoot him instead of closing in for physical battle Those kinds of questions are never answered in this movie.
There is also another scene where Lai is tied to a chair on wheels. Somehow she moves the chair out of a building and into a car where she, still tied to the rolling chair, hides in the back seat. How did she get the door opened How did she get the chair into the car How did she then get the door closed The answer I guess is “by magic!”
Statham makes a pretty good action figure. He certainly has the moves down pat. As an actor, well he leaves a lot to be desired. Let’s just say he makes Vin Diesel look Oscar worthy.
The movie is rated PG-13 for continuous action and profanity.
If you don’t care about plot or acting, but only want to see one fight sequence after another, then this is the movie for you. The rest of you had best stay away and wait for something better.
I scored “The Transporter” a moving 4 out of 10.
©2003 Jackie K. Cooper
