The Transporter (2002)
The Transporter is a 2002 English-language French action-thriller film directed by Corey Yuen and Louis Leterrier (who is credited as artistic director on the film), and written by Luc Besson, who was inspired by BMW Films’ The Hire series. The film stars Jason Statham as Frank Martin, a driver for hire—a mercenary “transporter” who will deliver anything, anywhere, no questions asked—for the right price. It also stars Shu Qi as Lai Kwai. It is the first installment in the Transporter franchise, succeeded by three sequels, Transporter 2 and Transporter 3, The Transporter Refueled (a reboot), and a television series.
Plot.
Frank Martin is a former special operations soldier and now highly skilled driver/mercenary residing in southern France whose callsign is The Transporter. He strictly follows three rigid rules when transporting: Never change the deal. No names. Never open the package. In Nice, Frank is hired to transport three bank robbers with his black BMW 735i, but they hoist a fourth man in his car after the robbery. Explaining the extra weight will affect his precisely planned getaway, he refuses to drive until, in desperation, the leader kills one of his men who is pushed out of the car. Later they offer more money for Frank to drive them to Avignon. He refuses the deal. The robbers escape in another car, but are foiled by their amateur driving. At Frank’s villa on the French Riviera, local Police Inspector Tarconi questions Frank about the black BMW that fled the scene of the robbery Frank was the getaway driver for.
Lacking any real proof, Tarconi leaves. Frank is then hired to deliver a package of 50 kilograms (110 lb) to an American, Darren “Wall Street” Bettencourt. The package is loaded into Frank’s trunk. While changing a flat tire, Frank notices the package moving. Realizing a person is inside, he violates his third rule in order to give the person something to drink. He discovers a woman, tied up and gagged. She attempts to escape but Frank recaptures her and returns her to the trunk along with two policemen who spot them.
Frank delivers the package to Bettencourt as promised and agrees to another job, transporting a briefcase. As he stops to buy drinks for the cops in his trunk, a bomb hidden in the briefcase explodes. Out for vengeance, Frank returns to Bettencourt’s villa where he kills and wounds several henchmen.
Frank then steals a car (a Mercedes-Benz S-Klasse) to get away, only to find “the package” bound and gagged in the back seat. He brings the young woman, whose name is Lai, back to his house. Bettencourt visits one of his surviving men in hospital in order to determine who attacked his residence, before killing the man after discovering that Frank is alive. The next day, Tarconi arrives and asks about Frank’s car, which Frank claims was stolen. Lai supports Frank’s alibi by introducing herself as his new cook and girlfriend. Tarconi again leaves with no concrete evidence. Shortly after, Bettencourt’s hitmen fire missiles and automatic weapons down on the house. Frank and Lai barely escape through an underwater passage to a nearby safe house.
Later, while being questioned at the police station, Lai accesses Tarconi’s computer to find information on Bettencourt.
Frank, presumed dead by Bettencourt, wants to rebuild his villa and start a new life and advises Lai to do so too before she tells him that Bettencourt is a human trafficker with 400 Chinese trapped in shipping containers, including her family. Lai and Frank go to Bettencourt’s office, where Bettencourt reveals that Lai’s father, Kwai, is also a human trafficker and Bettencourt’s partner in crime. Kwai arrives and his henchmen subdue Frank. When Tarconi arrives, Kwai and Bettencourt accuse Frank of kidnapping Lai. Tarconi has Frank arrested and locked up in the station. Realizing that Frank would not be constrained by search warrants and that he would be able to solve the case faster than the police, Tarconi agrees to aid Frank’s escape as his faux hostage and releases him at the harbour of Cassis.
Theatrical release, and Home Media.
The Transporter premiered in 2,573 theaters. With a production budget of $20.5 million, it grossed $25,296,447 in the United States and a total of $43,928,932 worldwide. The DVD version was released on 23 October 2003. It included fifteen minutes of extended fight scene footage and a feature-length commentary. On 23 August 2005, the film was released again in a “Special Delivery Edition”. This version included all the features of the original release plus a new behind-the-scenes documentary, a making-of featurette, and a storyboard-to-film comparison. The film was also released as a part of “The Transporter Collection”, which featured the first two films in the series. A Blu-ray format was released on 14 November 2006.Reception.
Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 54% based on reviews from 127 critics and an average rating of 5.6 out of 10. The site’s consensus reads: “The Transporter delivers the action at the expense of coherent storytelling.” At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film received an average score of 51 based on 27 reviews, indicating “mixed or average reviews”. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of “B+” on an A+ to F scale.Cast:
- Jason StathamasFrank Martin
- Shu Qias Lai Kwai
- François Berléandas Inspector Tarconi
- Matt Schulzeas Darren “Wall Street” Bettencourt
- Ric Youngas Mr. Kwai