Oh how I long for the days of Die Hard

Rating: Null/10 (16 December 2002)

On the heels of `XXX' and `Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever' comes `The Transporter', another movie that dedicates itself to non-stop action without care for much of anything else. Jason Statham plays Frank Martin, AKA The Transporter. He is a courier, moving packages for seedy gangsters. He lives in a waterside home and drives a sleek BMW that would make James Bond jealous. The Transporter operates by three rules: deals cannot be changed, there are no names to be used and to never look in the package.

During one of his jobs Martin breaks his third rule and opens the package, which has been thumping in his trunk for most of his drive. The cargo is actually a beautiful woman, (Qi Shi), and Martin is immediately attracted to her. But business is business, and he delivers her to the destination. After the delivery, the head thug (Matt Schulze) offers Martin another job, which he accepts. The package is a bomb, destroying the BMW, sending the very lucky Martin on a mission for revenge.
This is an action film, top to bottom. The opening car chase and some hand-to-hand fights are impressive, but unfortunately that's about it. The villains can't compete with Frank Martin, so therefore nobody cares about the plot, the supporting characters are one-dimensional and they all blurt out horrible lines of dialogue. The blame goes to writers Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen, who thought that only the explosions and karate chops would carry this movie. Action movies can have a brain, and last summer's `Bourne Identity' proved that.
Even with all of the film's problems, Jason Statham is excellent in the title role. An alumni of Guy Ritchie's ensemble casts in the British gangster films `Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels' and `Snatch', Statham proves he has the presence to steal the lead from Vin Diesel as the next big action star. Hopefully he'll be in some better movies, and turn out to be the next Bruce Willis rather than the next Jean-Claude Van Damme.

Grade: C