Originally published 9/3/2005
Transporter 2
Director: Louis Leterrier
Writers: Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen
Producers: Luc Besson and Steven Chasman
Stars: Jason Statham, Alessandro Gassman, Amber Valletta, Katie Nauta, Matthew Modine, Jason Flemying, Keith David, François Berléand, Hunter Clary
In 2002’s The Transporter there was a scene where Frank Martin (Jason Statham), an ex-British Special Forces soldier now in the lucrative field of mercenary high-speed driving, smeared his body in grease and fought a roomful of thugs while standing on bicycle pedals. As their grasping hands slipped impotently off his muscled torso I realized the movie had achieved a sort of Golden Mean of preposterousness. It was so calculatedly absurd it was practically daring you to enjoy it in spite of your better nature. Though the acting was mannered and bizarre and the plot all but incomprehensible, the movie was more fun than it had any right to be.
Something about the combination of driving stunts, fisticuffs and surly demeanor clicked enough with audiences to warrant a sequel, and a well-sponsored one at that. The true sign of The Transporter’s viability as a franchise is how lovingly-photographed the Heineken bottles in Frank Martin’s fridge are; and the ingenious way he uses an iPod and the dashboard computer of an Audi to help save Miami from the spread of a biological doomsday weapon.
If that sounds pretty unlikely to you, be warned that this sequel feels no regrets about all that grease business, and aims to top it if at all possible. In a way, while I can honestly say the makers of The Transporter care more about its plot this time around, I sm not convinced that’s a good thing in this case.
Frank has temporarily left his French countryside home and is slumming it for a month as the personal driver for Jack Billings (Hunter Clary), the young son of the U.S. Government drug czar (Matthew Modine). He ferries the kid to and from school each day, teaches him about the importance of seatbelts, and even discreetly shields the kid from the arguments between Daddy and Mommy (Amber Valletta). Mommy clearly admires Frank’s full service attitude.
Then one day Frank takes little Jack to the Doctor’s office for his checkup. When he sees that the receptionist is wearing stiletto heels and a tattoo reading “Death by Bunny” (among other clues), he suspects something is up, and he bursts in to find two Russian goons in badly-fitting doctor jackets trying to inject Jack with some unsightly green substance.
Despite Frank’s best and most violent efforts Jack is kidnapped, and the movie becomes about his capture as well as the mystery of that syringe, which contains a lethal man-made virus. Like all movie viruses it comes in designer colors – the bug in lime, the cure in violet.
Behind the various dastardly deeds is Gianni (Alessandro Gassman), who doesn’t particularly care about the outcome for his own sake but is acting as a sort of greasy megalomaniac-for-hire. The movie is thus best described as a guns-blazing salute to temps. Gianni’s sidekick/bedmate is the leggy Miss-Death-by-Bunny mentioned above (Kate Nauta) – she seems to get all her clothing from Trashy Lingerie and is certainly one of the more unique-looking villainesses in memory, sort of a cross between Famke Janssen’s Xenia Onatopp in Goldeneye and Daryl Hannah’s Pleasurebot in Blade Runner, but without half the acting chops of either, sadly.
Statham’s glowering, grumbling manner helps offset his increasingly ludicrous feats. He doesn’t act smug about all his various triumphs over physics and gravity, it’s more like he is annoyed that he’s being forced into them. Take the scene where he realizes the car he is driving has a bomb strapped to the undercarriage. A normal person might suggest diving out of the car, but that would mean abandoning the vehicle to its fate. Watch what Frank Martin does instead, and see if you can enjoy it even as you accept its utter impossibility.
The movie even shows a willingness to wink at itself – when Frank’s traditional black suit is torn, he reaches into a trunk full of weaponry and pulls out a cleanly-pressed, vacuum-sealed new suit to change into. And the French policeman (François Berléand), who showed such bemused disbelief at Frank’s antics in the previous film makes a contrived but amusing appearance, where he distracts the local cops by cooking for them.
The brawls, as choreographed by Cory Yuen (Jet Li’s frequent collaborator, back from the first movie), show the faux-improvisational delight we have seen in many Jackie Chan movies, as Frank makes non-traditional use of such found props as a fire hose, a chandelier and a boat. And one mano-a-mano that happens in a spiraling-out-of-control jet might just be the first chopsockey tribute to Fred Astaire’s dance on the ceiling in Royal Wedding.
But as I’ve said above, there is a greater emphasis on the mechanics of the story this time around, and the fighting/driving sequences show just a touch less ingenuity. And while there was a gritty appeal in its predecessor’s almost exclusively physical effects and earthbound melees, this time there are several instances of laughably amateurish digital animation, and some obvious wirework lending Frank some spring in his step.
In the end it just slightly misses achieving that same precious balance the first reached in its best moments. But its lack of pretense, and a willingness to try just about any damned thing it can think of to entertain you, makes The Transporter 2 appealing enough in the end. You can feel secure that, every time the fists start flying or the black Audi drops into gear, the filmmakers will work to earn your money.