The Transporter (2002) Review

Time: 92 Minutes
Cast:
Jason Statham as Frank Martin
Shu Qi as Lai Kwai
François Berléand as Inspector Tarconi
Matt Schulze as Darren “Wall Street” Bettencourt
Ric Young as Mr. Kwai
Director: Corey Yuen, Louis Leterrier

Former Special Forces officer, Frank Martin will deliver anything to anyone for the right price, and his no-questions-asked policy puts him in high demand. But when he realizes his latest cargo is alive, it sets in motion a dangerous chain of events. The bound and gagged Lai is being smuggled to France by a shady American businessman, and Frank works to save her as his own illegal activities are uncovered by a French detective.

2002’s The Transporter is known for being an action movie starring Jason Statham, and was in fact the film that started his career as an action star. It’s not that good, and its not even one of Statham’s best action movies, but its still a lot of fun to watch.

Plotwise, it is a very basic action plot: protagonist works in crimes and has a set of rules, but something causes him to have a change in heart. The story doesn’t really make sense, nor is it engaging or particularly interesting. Its not well structured and the plot can be choppy. Thankfully, it is shamelessly silly and knowingly over the top, so it is fun to watch. Additionally, the runtime is short at around 90 minutes and the film moves at a relatively quick pace, making this a very easy movie to watch. When it arrives the third act, it goes all out with the action and fight scenes and is very entertaining.

Jason Statham’s debut action lead role is really good, he’s well cast as Frank Martin. His character is yet another, cold blooded anti hero who has a bit of heart (and is more restrained compared to Statham’s later action characters). It’s a typical archetype for an action movie, but he makes his character engaging enough. He’s confident with the action scenes and the one liners, you can see from this why he would go on to have an action career. The rest of the cast aren’t all that special, but the movie just requires Statham to do his thing.

The direction from Corey Yuen and Louis Leterrier isn’t great and the movie looks a little dated (it looks firmly in the 2000s), but is decent enough and stylish. The highlight outside of Statham are the well-crafted and exciting action sequences, from the car chases to the fight scenes. There are some quick cuts during the action scenes, but they’re actually done in an effective way.

The Transporter is an above average action movie made entertaining by the fight and chase scenes and Jason Statham in the lead role. It’s not special but it doesn’t need to be, and it succeeds at what it sets out to be.

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Fast Five (2011) Review

Time: 130 Minutes
Age Rating: contains violence & offensive language
Cast:
Vin Diesel as Dominic Toretto
Paul Walker as Brian O’Conner
Jordana Brewster as Mia Toretto
Tyrese Gibson as Roman Pearce
Chris “Ludacris” Bridges as Tej Parker
Matt Schulze as Vince
Sung Kang as Han Lue
Dwayne Johnson as Luke Hobbs
Gal Gadot as Gisele Yashar
Joaquim de Almeida as Hernan Reyes
Elsa Pataky as Elena Neves
Director: Justin Lin

Ever since ex-cop Brian O’Conner (Paul Walker) and Mia Torretto (Jordana Brewster) broke her brother Dom (Vin Diesel) out of custody, they’ve traveled border to border to evade authorities. In Rio de Janeiro, they must do one final job before they can gain their freedom for good. Assembling their elite team of car racers, Brian and Dom know they must confront the corrupt businessman who wants them dead, before the federal agent (Dwayne Johnson) on their trail finds them.

Up until Fast Five, the Fast and Furious was a rather okay but entertaining action franchise based around street racing. Some of the movies were reasonably fun but that was sort of it. Fast Five changed that with a much larger blockbuster direction very much for the better, also changing the series as a whole.

The plot is simple enough: main characters decide to pull off heist on a drug lord while they are being chased by a DEA agent. They don’t make it needlessly complicated, they know what this movie is, with just the right amount of self awareness and witty humour throughout. With Fast Five, they increased the scale and scope of the series. They replaced the street racing formula with elements of a heist thriller, effectively resurrecting this franchise and makes it go in a new direction that actually works quite well. What also works is that they reunite the whole crew with characters from the past movies, making this a sort of soft reboot. If you haven’t seen any of the previous movies, you really don’t have to. You might miss some details with backstories and other characters that are mentioned in passing, but you can pick up on those easily easily. On top of the original Fast and Furious team with Dom, Brian and Mia, there’s characters introduced from 2 Fast 2 Furious, Tokyo Drift and Fast and Furious. While that could seem a bit overwhelming to have all these characters brought in, they actually work quite well together. Despite the over the top action, the screenplay does place more emphasis on its story and characters, to the film’s benefit. Then there’s the ever present theme about family, and as much as this has been made fun of, it is something that is throughout these movies. One of the things that I like most about these movies is that for as over the top they are, they are genuine and endearing with the characters and their journeys. So it’s just the right mix where they don’t take it too seriously and don’t let anything like physics get in the way of the action, while actually caring about the story and characters.

The movie has a stellar ensemble with the actors playing to their advantages. Returning main cast members Vin Diesel, Paul Walker and Jordana Brewster come back, as does Tyrese Gibson, Ludacris, Gal Gadot, Suan Kang and more from the previous movies to reprise their roles. All of them work together well in the team and have great chemistry together. It’s no coincidence that the series really found itself after Dwayne Johnson joined it. His personality and charisma adds a lot to this movie as well as the following movies. In this movie, he’s going after Vin Diesel and his group (before teaming up with him later on) and its fun watching them face off.

Fast Five is directed by Justin Lin, who directed The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift and Fast & Furious prior to it, but he seemed to have improved over these movies. He has such a sleek direction, the action scenes are particularly great. This movie obviously is far from being realistic but it’s all shot, edited and filmed well. The third act is the standout, and there’s particularly an insane final setpiece involving a giant safe, which is particularly strong. Brian Tyler’s score packs some intense tracks that adds a lot to the action.

Fast Five is one of the best entries in the franchise, this is really where the series took off and it’s easy to see why. Even looking back at it now 10 years later, it still holds up despite its ever present flaws. It’s entertaining while caring about its characters and story, it’s silly and over the top while being endearing, it’s just the right blend of elements. If you’ve never seen a Fast and Furious movie, you could jump right in with this movie.

The Fast and the Furious (2001) Review

Time: 106 Minutes
Age Rating: Violence and Offensive Language
Cast:
Paul Walker as Brian O’Conner
Vin Diesel as Dominic Toretto
Michelle Rodriguez as Leticia “Letty” Ortiz
Jordana Brewster as Mia Toretto
Rick Yune as Johnny Tran
Chad Lindberg as Jesse
Johnny Strong as Leon
Matt Schulze as Vince
Ted Levine as Tanner
Director: Rob Cohen

LA street racer Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) falls under the suspicion of the LAPD for a string of high-speed electronics truck robberies. Brian O’Connor (Paul Walker) an officer of the LAPD, joins the ranks of Toretto’s highly skilled racing crew undercover to convict Toretto. However, O’Connor finds himself both enamored with this new world and in love with Toretto’s sister, Mia (Jordana Brewster) As a rival racing crew gains strength, O’Connor must decide where his loyalties lie.

The Fast and Furious franchise is today one of the most popular action franchises today, with its seventh instalment released earlier this year. Watching the original 2001 film, it was interesting to see how it started off in the first place. Looking at it now, it’s actually quite well set up with good action, although quite different from the later instalments. Although I don’t think it’s as good as the more recent films in the franchise, I still found this first film to be quite enjoyable.

People more familiar with the newer films should know that unlike those films where it had focused on the main characters doing such activities such as pulling off heists, this film was focussed on street racing, in fact that is what the first 3 films focused on. The film at times does feel a little slow for a film about street racing especially in the first act however once it got into the second act I was invested in the film. Granted, like all the Fast and Furious movies, the plot doesn’t really matter. We are really just there to see guys drive fast cars and enjoy the action that unfolds. The film is quite good at that but don’t expect them to be parachuting in cars onto a bridge or anything similar.

The actors for the most part do well, they aren’t really spectacular but they aren’t really supposed to be, the action with the cars is supposed to be the main focus. There was really only any character development with a couple of characters but they all did well with what they have. I actually liked Paul Walker as the main character, I know that a lot of people have a problem with him but I think his character worked for the film. The show stealer for me though was Vin Diesel, he’s often one of the main highlights of the Fast and Furious films. The rest of the cast which consisted of actors like Michelle Rodriguez and Jordana Brewster also worked for their roles. The villain played by Rick Yune was decent, he does usually play great villains (Olympus has Fallen, Die Another Day). He’s not really the villain until the second half but he does well with what he’s got, despite being not very developed.

The Fast and Furious franchise always has had great action (with maybe the exception of 2 Fast 2 Furious) and that was always there from the beginning. The stunt work, especially with the cars is very commendable. If you are going into this film (or any Fast and Furious movie for that matter), do understand that the film isn’t realistic in the slightest, however honestly, this might be the most realistic Fast and Furious movie in terms of action scenes. The film also has a nice sharp and quick style which really works for the film.

While not one of the better Fast and Furious movies, it is still a decent movie and I really enjoyed watching it. If you never enjoyed any of the Fast and Furious movies than this won’t change your mind. It’s exactly the type of film you’d expect called Fast and Furious. If you liked the more recent Fast and Furious films, I think it’s worth checking this one out. It’s not as exciting or have as much overblown fun as the latest films but I think there’s quite a bit of enjoyment to have here.