{"id":12386,"date":"2025-07-07T23:47:44","date_gmt":"2025-07-08T03:47:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=12386"},"modified":"2025-07-07T23:47:44","modified_gmt":"2025-07-08T03:47:44","slug":"the-transporter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2025\/07\/07\/the-transporter\/","title":{"rendered":"The Transporter"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The Transporter<\/strong> (2002)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 20th<\/sup> Century Fox\/Action\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 92 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (violent sequences, language, some sensuality)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Louis Leterrier and Cory Yuen\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Stanley Clarke\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Pierre Morel\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: October 11, 2002 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Jason Statham, Shu Qi, Francois Berleand, Matt Schulze, Ric Young.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $25.2M (US)\/$43.9M (World)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

\u00a0Everybody who knows me knows my affection for old school action stars (e.g. Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Steven Seagal, etc.) runs deep. It seems like we don\u2019t get the same quality of bad ass action star anymore. Who do studios need to bother when, thanks to the magic of CGI, they can plug any actor into a bigger and supposedly better action scenario?<\/p>\n

\u00a0Hey, I like the Fast & Furious flicks just as much as anybody else, but there\u2019s something to be said for honest-to-God bad asses like Jason Statham. The Brit actor appeared in a few movies- e.g. Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch, Ghosts of Mars and The One- before making his real breakthrough in The Transporter<\/strong>, a full-tilt-boogie, kick-ass actioner unlike the usual stuff served up by Hollywood these days. It has a distinctive European flavor (courtesy of co-director Louis Leterrier) with fight scenes out of a Hong Kong martial arts flick (courtesy of co-director Cory Yuen). It\u2019s written by Robert Mark Kamen (The Karate Kid movies) and Luc Besson (La Femme Nikita, Leon the Professional). Sweet pedigree, no? It\u2019s made sweeter by the fact that The Transporter<\/strong> is so good. It\u2019s tight, exciting, violent and fun. It\u2019s as solid an action flick as anything I watched and loved in my youth.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Ex-Special Forces op Frank Martin aka \u201cThe Transporter\u201d (Statham) is a professional driver. He will transport anything, anytime, no questions asked. He has three rules from which he never deviates:<\/p>\n

(1) Once the deal is made, it\u2019s final. No changes.<\/p>\n

(2) No names.<\/p>\n

(3) Never open the package.<\/p>\n

He illustrates his adherence to the rules in the opening scene when he refuses to drive an inch because the bank robbers that hired him as getaway driver try to bring an extra man. Frank explains that the extra weight will make it more difficult to elude the cops. He doesn\u2019t move until they kill a wounded man and push him out of the car.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Frank is next hired to deliver a package to an American gangster known as \u201cWall Street\u201d (Schulze, The Fast and the Furious) in Nice. When he stops to change a flat tire, he notices the duffel bag is moving. It turns out there\u2019s a young Chinese girl (Taiwanese actress Qi) inside, bound and gagged. He delivers the package as promised and agrees to transport a briefcase for Wall Street. BIG MISTAKE! It turns out to be a bomb. KA-BOOM! Frank\u2019s car is toast! Frank returns to the mansion and beats the crap out of everybody in sight. He steals a car from the gangster, the same one the girl, whose name is Lai, is hiding in. Even though it\u2019s against his professional code, Frank gets involved with Lai which puts him up against a human trafficking ring led by Kwai (Young, Kiss of the Dragon).<\/p>\n

\u00a0Frank gets help from his sort-of-friend Inspector Tarconi (Berleand, Romance), a local cop who\u2019s aware of Frank\u2019s criminal doings but can\u2019t prove a thing. At one point, he helps Frank escape from custody so he can go after the bad guys. After all, he has no problem doing what the police aren\u2019t legally allowed to do.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The Transporter<\/strong> is filled with cool car chases and stunts including an early \u201cYEAH, RIGHT!\u201d moment when Frank drive-jumps from a bridge right onto an auto transport truck which conveniently has a single empty space. Later, in the climactic car chase, Frank parachutes onto a truck transporting the Chinese immigrants. I like that Statham does most of his own stunts (according to IMDb). He\u2019s a hell of a fighter too. He effortlessly takes out gangs of bad guys out to kill him. He\u2019s also resourceful as evidenced by the scene where he covers himself in motor oil so his opponents aren\u2019t able to get a hold of him.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The Transporter<\/strong> is a very exciting movie. So what if the plot is paper thin? So what if lead actress Qi isn\u2019t all that great an actress? It has lots of action and violence, the bad guys are sufficiently loathsome and it keeps moving. The French locations are a very nice touch. Even the smallest of details, like Frank buying a bottle of Orangina, a popular carbonated beverage in Europe, give The Transporter<\/strong> a unique feel. It\u2019s stylish and sleek like a well-oiled vehicle. It never runs out of gas.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Transporter (2002)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 20th Century Fox\/Action\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 92 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (violent sequences, language, some sensuality)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Louis Leterrier and Cory Yuen\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Stanley Clarke\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Pierre Morel\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: October 11, 2002 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Jason Statham, Shu Qi, Francois Berleand, Matt Schulze, Ric Young.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $25.2M […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12462,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-kick-ass-actioners"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/The-Transporter-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12386"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12386\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12464,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12386\/revisions\/12464"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}