The Transporter ***½ (2002, Jason Statham, Shu Qi, Matt Schulze) – Classic Movie Review 2200

Jason Statham stars as a crooks’ delivery boy who finds his latest package is a sexy dame (Shu Qi) in distress, in this flashy, fun and exciting if often clumsy action thriller, directed in 2002 by Louis Leterrier, with the action sequences directed by Corey Yuen (Jet Li’s fight director).

Statham stars as Ex-Special Forces operator Frank Martin, now a hired gun who does driving jobs for a high fee and delivers packages in his tricked-out BMW without asking any questions. One day he accepts a job from an American man known only as Wall Street (Matt Schulze) to make a deliver. But he makes the mistake of breaking his own rules and looking inside the package he’s delivering when he notices his package is moving.

Frank looks inside the bag and finds a beautiful, gagged woman. Wall Street finds out that Frank has broken the rules and knows about Lai, and sends his mercenaries to assassinate Frank, who decides to protect Lai as well as himself. He agrees to help her rescue enslaved people from China, who are being smuggled into France by Wall Street, helped by Lai’s father.

The bone-crunching action and wild stunts are preposterously thrilling and Statham’s a convincing presence as a cool tough guy, but some of the rest of the movie seems unrealistic and amateurish.

It helps that there’s a reasonably well-crafted if far-fetched script by Luc Besson (also the film’s co-credited producer) and Robert Mark Kamen, who went on to write Taken. The flashy cinematography is by Pierre Morel, who went on to direct Taken.

Shu Qi learned to speak English phonetically for her role. When Lai goes to take a taxi, it is a white Peugeot 406, the same taxi the main character drives in Luc Besson’s Taxi (1998). Wall Street’s real name is Derren Bettencourt, as can be seen in the D.A.T.A.P.O.L. printout.

It was a big hit, and Transporter 2 (2005) and Transporter 3 (2008) followed. After Statham turned down making a fourth episode, The Transporter Refueled starred Ed Skrein in the 2015 reboot.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2200

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