June 18, 2009
"Have a good life. What's left of it."
Jason Statham is the unlikeliest of high-octane action heroes. He's a stocky, ordinary-looking Englishman who doesn't come off all that swift. But as the ex-Special Forces operative Frank Martin, the impeccably dressed, blank-faced ...( read more)professional driver in The Transporter and its sequel, with more tricks - and lives - than James Bond, he's struck gold with a franchise-spawning role. The part allows for the exhibition of some impressive martial-arts skills (he performs almost all his own stunts) while requiring very little in the acting department.
I'll keep this short and sweet: Transporter 2 is precisely what it looks like, which means you won't get a whole lot of brilliant surprises, but if you watched the trailer and thought "Hey, neat-o," then the flick will capably deliver what you're expecting: car chases, gun battles, and fast-paced fisticuffs up the wazoo. You're looking for deep thoughts, well-constructed characters, and a narrative arc that's not insane? Go to the DVD shelf and pick another film. Transporter 2 is the flick to watch when you're in the mood for some fun, simple as that. And it manages to give a lot, at least in the high-octane lunacy department.
After relocating to Miami from the dreamy French seaside, where the Euro-chic first film was set, Frank accepts a short-term assignment chauffeuring a wealthy family's young son. But before long, the boy, for whom Frank has developed a soft spot, is kidnapped and injected with a deadly contagious virus, intended to be passed along to his self-absorbed father (Matthew Modine, in an exceedingly thankless role) and his drug-enforcement colleagues. Frank, whose life is governed by his own strict set of rules, vows to save the boy's life and proceeds to do whatever it takes (the more insanely implausible, the better) to keep his word, while being aggressively pursued by the police, who believe Frank is in on the crime.
Taking over directing duties from Corey Yuen, who was responsible for the first film but, thankfully, did the martial-arts choreography here, is Louis Leterrier, son of the legendary French director François Leterrier - and clearly the right man for the job. In addition to serving as artistic director on the first instalment, he also directed Luc Besson's Jet Li vehicle Danny the Dog, released in 2005 as well.
Purely shallow but never dull, the film wisely pushes the limits of absurdity (more than the first film) to the extreme, making it easier to submit to its sheer camp. But even with all thought processes deactivated, it's hard to tolerate the main female baddie (the American newcomer Kate Nauta), who struts around in lingerie and red stilettos, toting large guns, while delivering one of the worst performances since Milla Jovovich, another clothing-deprived supermodel-turned-actress, appeared in Besson's Fifth Element. That's my only real complaint about Transporter 2. I'm sure there were hundreds of aspiring actresses capable of doing a better job (both acting and looking hot), they just had to look for her.
This is Statham's show all the way, and the irrepressibly intense Londoner has worked pretty hard to build himself a body of work that yells "bad ass character actor." With someone else on board as the transporter, this series could prove to be a fairly interminable chore. But Statham's got gravelly grit and slick screen presence by the bucketful, and it's easy to just enjoy the guy's no-bullshit performance as the kinetic lunacy continues unabated.
Transporter 2 is, all things said and done, a perfectly outlandish and tight-knuckled little action flick, a mindless piece of well-hewn escapism that delivers several borderline-retarded moments of action mayhem - but does it with such style and attitude that one can't help but play along. While it's true that many of the action set-pieces found within come dangerously close to the outright stupidity found in lesser action films, there's a cocked eyebrow and tongue-in-cheek demeanour that clearly indicate the filmmakers are in on the joke. And while it's true that several of the loonier stunts will have you rolling your eyeballs in "oh, come on!" incredulity, the simple fact is that Transporter 2 is quick, crafty, and just kooky enough to make for a net, sunny afternoon of mindless fun with your friends.
It's got an ultra-cool hero, an amazingly hot (albeit weepy) mum, a callous politico dad, a sneering villain with rotten teeth, a strangely sexy stick-figure of a henchwoman, and the always-welcome and nice Inspector Tarconi, reprised to perfection by François Berléand. It's all flash and no brains, but it's also a film that exists for one simple reason: to deliver 80-some minutes of slickly crafted and frequently off-the-wall action sequences. And just like Frank Martin himself, the film doesn't let up until those packages are delivered.
Share This Review
