colorful action picture

Rating: Null/10 (27 October 2002)

`The Transporter' is pretty good for what it is - a sleek, slick, high-octane action thriller that couldn't possibly expect us to believe anything we are seeing on screen and, quite frankly, doesn't care that we don't. That attitude is probably all for the best in this case, since it allows the filmmakers to devise elaborate action and stunt sequences without having to pay the slightest heed to that fantasy killjoy known as `credibility.'
Jason Statham literally drips attitude as The Transporter, a stolid, nattily dressed former military man who spends his time delivering packages (no questions asked) all over the French Mediterranean for what turn out to be some pretty shady criminal clients. One day he discovers that the `package' he is to deliver happens to be a human being - a pretty young Chinese girl named Lai Kwan who has been dropped, bound and gagged, into the trunk of the sporty car on which he lavishes most, if not all, of the love and caring he has to offer. Yet, Frank turns out, despite his initial air of callous and self-serving indifference, to be a criminal-type with a heart of gold, and he is soon helping Ms. Kwan foil an attempt by her nefarious father to sell a crate load of Chinese immigrants into slavery. However, the plot is the least of the matter when it comes to a movie like `The Transporter.' This film is far more concerned with attitude and style than it is with its storyline, which exists merely as a vehicle on which to hang all the explosions, car chases and kickboxing fight scenes that have become the stock-in-trade for modern action pictures. The movie is well directed, well edited and quite beautifully photographed by cinematographer Pierre Morel, who gives the film's French Riviera setting a bright, sparkling sheen. In fact, Morel's camerawork here is some of the best I have seen in a film in a very long time.
In addition to Statham, who makes for a very `cool' action film hero, Francois Berleand turns in a wonderful performance as a shrewd, wisecracking police inspector who knows that Frank is up to something but who has enough faith in his own instincts to at least give the man the benefit of the doubt. Qi Shu is cute and charming as the uninvited and unwelcome `complication' that steps into Frank's smooth-running, well-ordered life.
`The Transporter' is the cinematic equivalent of junk fast food - not high in nutritional value, but quickly consumed and satisfying when you don't have the time or inclination for something more demanding. Like its cool-under-pressure protagonist, the film delivers the goods.