Transporter 3

And so the Transporter money train (well, Audi A8) trundles on, just without the pace or panache of the original. There’s nothing revelatory or revolutionary in Transporter but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Solid but simple action movies are fun for all the family, but the basics have got to be in place – like a half-decent script. Only Arnie ever got away with stilted one-liners, and even then he had to be playing a machine to make it work. Olivier Megaton’s Transporter 3, then, is a decent enough action/adventure (almost) ruined by truly terrible dialogue that brings the film close to farce.

Megaton uses a premise not dissimilar to Under Siege 2 to give Jason Statham’s Frank Martin a new and generic adversary in ‘Johnson’, played by Robert Knepper. He forces poor Frank out of retirement to drive Valentina (Natalya Rudakova) across Eastern Europe as part of diabolical scheme to make her politician father dispose of a tanker-full of toxic waste. Two more incompatible people were never put on screen than Statham and Rudakova, but somehow they fall in love on the way to a violent standoff with Johnson (see Under Siege 2 for further details).

Writer/producer Luc Besson apparently met Rudakova while crossing the street and, after a brief conversation, cast her as Statham’s passenger/love interest. From her first scenes it’s easy to see she’s never acted before, but as the film goes on, you start to marvel at Besson’s sheer bad luck. Ninety-nine out of 100 people plucked from the street would have put in a better performance, so lifeless is her delivery. Her face never betrays even a flicker of real emotion and she seems genuinely lost and confused in what is in fact a very simple film about car chases. On this evidence, Besson should never enter a casino again, as the Gods of Good Fortune are clearly not looking out for him.

But, then again, Besson gives her some remarkably stilted and childish dialogue to work with. In one scene, after Statham plunges his Audi into a river to avoid certain death-by-submachine gun, Knepper sagely points out that, “His beloved car will now be his grave”. Forget an evil cackle, this stuff will have you belly laughing out loud.

There’s no merriment to be had with Statham though, who is actually the making of this film. Throughout, he’s a workhorse, and does exactly what’s required of him. He fights, he drives fast, he blows things up – always with a determined, tough-guy stance and a measured indifference to the events unfolding around him. He may be something of a one-trick-pony, but like the character he plays here, Statham always delivers.

His commitment to the cause is admirable, but not enough to save Transporter 3 from becoming very silly, very quickly, and the blame lies squarely with Besson. Remember how you cringed, and then laughed, at Andy MacDowell’s “Is it raining? I hadn’t noticed!” line in Four Weddings and a Funeral? Transporter 3 has at least a dozen worse examples that make even the faintest suspension of disbelief impossible. This surely must be the end of the road for this broken-down franchise.

Jon Williams

Anticipation:

If you’ve seen one car chase, you’ve seen them all.

Enjoyment:

Fast, occasionally fun and packs a punch.

In Retrospect:

Would have been better as a silent movie.