The REEL Addict 

By Souf Jalili

Our favourite ‘package’ deliverer, Frank Martin suits up and returns to screens this week for another adrenaline-fuelled delivery in the third installment of the TRANSPORTER series with Olivier Megaton taking over the directorial reins from Corey Yuen and Louis Leterrier.

For the uninitiated, the TRANSPORTER series centers on driver extraordinaire, Frank Martin who has a reputation for efficiently transporting high-value cargo without asking any questions. After the first film struck a chord with action fans in 2002 and established Jason Statham as a bankable action star and the second built on the originals following and doubled it’s box office in 2005, a third installment was inevitable and the tagline for the new film - ‘This time, the rules are the same. Except one’’ - essentially sums up what viewers have in store for them this weekend. Like the first two films, this one too is a high-concept visual thrill-ride, consisting of high-speed car chases, graphic hand-to-hand fights, over-the-top villains with overcomplicated schemes and some remarkable gravity-defying stunts.

In this chapter, Frank is coerced into transporting feisty red-head, Valentina (Natalya Rudakova), the kidnapped daughter of Leonid Vasilev, (Jeroen Krabbé), the Ukrainian head of the Environmental Protection Agency from Western to Eastern Europe. The twist being that to ensure cooperation, Frank’s blackmailers have saddled both him and Valentina with explosive bracelets that will detonate if they move more than 75 feet from the car!

The TRANSPORTER films are hardly known for their storylines, with fight scenes and car chases compensating for narrative thinness, lazy writing and underdeveloped characters. This edition is no different. There’s plenty of action, plenty of car chases and plenty of martial arts fighting. However, Megaton fails up to live up to his explosive name and shows little talent for orchestrating action scenes. He botches things up by undermining the momentum of the fights and the car chases through MTV-style cutting and frantic editing techniques which - when combined with a booming score - only serve to make everything blurry and frantic, squeezing out all the excitement from the action scenes. Also, unlike the first two films, this edition is low on kung fu sequences with Frank, for obvious reasons, mostly confined to his car and when he does actually fight, he rarely faces any worthy opponents. Add to that, the romantic sub-plot between Frank and Valentina, intended to add more depth to Frank’s character, seems forced and intruding and tends to slow the proceedings down.

Nonetheless, there is still lots to enjoy here and Jason Statham more than makes up for any directorial and pacing flaws. Statham has a towering screen presence and he single-handedly elevates the material. Playing the anti-hero to perfection, he oozes confidence, makes the fights believable and delivers dry one-lines like nobody’s business. Every so often, a new action hero emerges and Statham is the quintessential action hero for our generation and a worthy successor to the likes of Stallone, Willis and Schwarzenegger. Statham is effortlessly cool and good-looking, he is an appealing actor with a great comic timing and a great onscreen fighter who does his own stunts and he has just enough tongue in cheek to sell us ridiculous premises and over the top action scenes in films like TRANSPORTER and CRANK and he is the main reason why the film works.

The rest of the diverse cast do fine; François Berléand makes the most of his one-dimensional side-kick character, Robert Knepper exudes just about enough menace as Martin’s nemesis, and making a painful acting debut, newcomer Natalya Rudakova compensates for any shortcomings in the acting department with her looks and delectable freckles.

The production values are fine and the film has a very slick look, the producers also make the most of the explosive bracelet device to add tension and freshness to the action scenes and there is a very memorable scene with Frank chasing down a car while riding a BMX bike through a crowded warehouse that has to be seen to be believed.

All in all, despite appearing like a quickly made, spotty sequel, TRANSPORTER 3 is redeemed by Statham’s charismatic presence and some terrifically implausible stunts. The latest installment falls somewhere between the first and the second film and is a vast improvement on the ridiculous second outing and while it does not register much of an impression and leaves much to be desired as a film, it’s simple, mindless fun and does well to display Statham’s incredible appeal as a reliable action hero. Fans of the franchise and action aficionados won’t be disappointed and the film is likely to perform strongly at the box office over the weekend, paving the way for yet another installment.