The Transporter (2002) Dir: Corey Yuen

There's a moment in The Transporter when you just have to ignore the sheer idiocy of the plot, the ropy acting, the cheesy dialogue and sit back, with a grin on  your face and think, hey, I'm actually enjoying this. That moment comes when a topless Jason Statham pours a bucket of car oil over himself and takes out several bad guys in a slipping and sliding martial arts fight. It is both hilarious and wonderful in equal measure and it's not the only time that Statham gets his shirt off in this film.

I always thought my first ever blog post would be about Citizen Kane or Casablanca or Tokyo Story or one of a myriad of cinematic classics. And yet I find myself writing about a European action  B-movie. Why? Because (a) it's fun (b) it's my blog and (c) I'll write about whatever the hell I want.



Statham plays Frank Martin, the transporter of the title who will transport anything for a price. He has, of course, a code. All anti-heroes in these types of film do and Frank's code consists of 3 cardinal rules:

1. Never change the deal
2. No names
3. Never look in the package

Of course, Frank breaks one of his own rules leading all sorts of nonsensical, people smuggling, building-exploding, airplane chasing, lorry-jumping and topless oil wrestling shenanigans and that's not something you'll see in Citizen Kane. (Orson Welles covered in oil, anyone?) The action scenes are well choreographed and, at a refreshing 92 mins, it zips along at a nice pace. I enjoyed it more than the most recent Bond effort

The Transporter is Ronseal film-making at its finest. It does exactly what it says on the tin and it makes no bones about it. It's not pretending to be something else. Statham knows his audience and gives them exactly what what they want. And it's hard not to cheer for that.