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France, United States · 2002
Rated PG-13 · 1h 32m
Director Louis Leterrier, Corey Yuen
Starring Jason Statham, Shu Qi, François Berléand, Matt Schulze
Genre Action, Crime, Thriller
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Frank Martin, a former special operations officer living in Southern France, works as a mercenary, willing to transport anything anywhere with no questions asked. However, when he learns the truth about a horrifying assignment, he is forced to fight for his life against his dangerous employers.
There's plenty to like here, especially for connoisseurs of the action genre, and there's also plenty to make you wonder whether Besson and co-writer Robert Mark Kamen scribbled their screenplay on a batch of Marseilles cocktail napkins and then lost one or two.
Los Angeles Times by Manohla Dargis
The plot doesn't rate as high as the quality of the bodies in fast, furious motion. What counts in The Transporter isn't the wafer-thin story about smugglers -- it's the way Martin kicks open a door, fends off a couple of axes and uses a perfectly ordinary sport shirt as a weapon.
Austin Chronicle by Marrit Ingman
A slick, sexy little package with fast cars, big explosions, dazzling locations in the south of France, a trip-hop score, and about as much plot to fill a thimble.
San Francisco Chronicle by Mick LaSalle
That the movie becomes silly isn't necessarily a problem, but it also becomes tiresome, degenerating into a series of martial arts interludes -- everyone unaccountably leaves his guns at home.
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) by Ray Conlogue
This is a film where there isn't the slightest doubt about the dramatic outcome. But the marketing will be a cliffhanger.
If anything, The Transporter isn't ludicrous enough; only one scene (a hand-to-hand showdown in the middle of an oil slick) reaches the inspired, delirious comic heights of the best Hong Kong movies.
TV Guide Magazine by Steve Simels
It takes perverse genius to make an action film this stupid.
Philadelphia Inquirer by Steven Rea
A thoroughly satisfying mix of mayhem and mindless fun.
So second-hand and disposable is it in every respect.
The best movie Steven Seagal never made. Except that Statham, while just as marked for death, is harder to kill.
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