Transporter 3

I really like Jason Statham as an actor. He had great performances in Guy Ritchie's first two films, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch. I suspect he is a quite limited actor, however, and so I understand why he has preferred the action movie hero role as his predominant casting rubric. Truth be told he actually makes a pretty good action hero. He's largely taciturn but when he does speak he has that gruff, no nonsense voice. He can be a killer but emotes just enough that you know he's the good guy who deep down has the heart of gold. Even though he's been in a lot of terrible action films over the years, he always manages to be a redeeming quality.

The Transporter film series is admittedly pretty formulaic. Its whole raison d'etre is car chases, gun battles and martial arts. And the third installment just takes the tried and true formula and adds an admittedly shallow trick to it, so the adrenaline keeps flowing. Statham is Frank Martin, a former US special forces soldier and wheel man extraordinaire. He's forced into a job in which he must delivery a package to a specified location and if he goes more than 75 feet from the car, he blows up. This causes some outrageously absurd moments in the film but that's par for the course in action films any more.

It isn't a great action film but it delivers the goods in a satisfactory way. Yes, the acting and dialog are atrocious (save a certain exception, which I will mention later on). Yes the plot is overly convoluted and in fact the main villain even points this out at one point. But no one came to this film for good acting, dialog and intricately well thought out plots. We came to see a guy drive fast and take on hordes of the enemy in elaborate choreographed martial arts stunts. And you know what? The movie delivers.

The fight scenes are really fun to watch. Not the least of which is because I can actually follow what is happening. The director doesn't cut every .012 seconds during the action so that I have no idea what is happening. You can see the kicks, the punches, the elaborate and ludicrous use of Statham's wardrobe as weapons. Sure the chase sequences aren't great but the effective car chase sequence is a Holy Grail of action films and very hard to pull off or even to explain why the best ones are so effective. I also enjoy the 20 to 1 odds that Statham often faces. Yes, its over the top but its satisfying to watch.

I mentioned above that some of the acting and dialog wasn't completely awful. This is thanks to French actor Francois Berleand. He plays Inspector Tarconi a police investigator who is friend's with Martin despite the fact that one is criminal and one is police. He's been in every episode of this trilogy and has been memorable in each. He plays such a laid back bon vivant that I can't help but smile. A number of his conversations with Frank are amusing and give you the sense that these two are age old friends.

You know very well whether you are likely to enjoy Transporter 3 based on whether 1) in general you enjoy action films (even not so great ones) or 2) you enjoyed even remotely any of the previous two films. I for one was glad for the fun.