Sequels rarely live up to their predecessors, but French director Louis
Leterrier's new big noisy dumb action-thriller "The Transporter 2" (***1/2 OUT OF ****)
with lean, mean Jason Statham behind the wheel again, proves the
exception to the rule. Mind you, the plot of the original "Transporter"
about the contemporary international slave trade merely provided the
framework for a number of audacious auto stunts and hyper-kinetic
martial arts combat face-offs that obscured its politically correct
plot. Famed Hong Kong martial arts guru Cory Yuen did double-duty on
the first "Transporter" (2002) as director and action choreographer.
(No, you don't have to worry about walking blindly into "Transporter
2." However, if you fork over the bucks for the new DVD 'Special
Delivery' version of the original "Transporter," you'll find a free
ticket inside, so you can kill two birds with one stone. The first
"Transporter" ranked as a roller-coaster of a crime thriller.) This
time around Yuen serves strictly as action choreographer, while art
director Louis Leterrier takes over the helm on a follow-up film that
surpasses its predecessor by virtue of a bigger budget for larger, more
outlandish stunts and more inventive martial arts aerobatics. An
equally politically correct plot about an attempt to exterminate the
world's head drug enforcement honchos at an international narcotics
summit provides the scaffold for these stunts. No, "Transporter 2"
isn't a foil the assassination yarn. Initially, this Twentieth Century
Fox film resembles director Tony Scott's slam-bang, high-octane,
actioneer "Man on Fire" (2004) with Denzel Washington as a bullet-proof
bodyguard determined to rescue kidnap victim Dakota Fanning. Happily,
Leterrier and his scenarists, producer Luc ("Le Femme Nikita") Besson
and writer Robert Mark Kamen, ditch the child-in-jeopardy plot early on
for bigger game. Nevertheless, they were shrewd enough to know that
it's not the game that counts so much but how you play it. The kind of
audience that will relish "Transporter 2" are those who refuse to let
realism dictate the bottom line. They know from the get-go that the
hero can't die. Genuine connoisseurs of the genre make allowances for
stunts and fights that violate the laws of gravity. In big, dumb, noisy
action movies, anything visually possible is plausible no matter how
implausible it ultimately is. Director Robert Rodriguez's shoot'em up sagas "Desperado" (1995) with Antonio Banderas as well as "Once Upon A
Time in Mexico" (2003) exemplify the prime examples of big, dumb, noisy
action thrillers. Some stunts in "Transporter 2," especially the
fast-car driving, have their antecedents in older movies. At least,
Leterrier and company have taken the stunts a bit farther than previous
ones. Sadly, "Transporter 2" suffers from clearly obvious
computer-generated style video game footage that undercuts the dramatic
impact of the aerial scenes. Furthermore, the quality of the matte
shots that stand in for different backgrounds is pretty awful.
Anybody that saw the original "Transporter" knows that British
protagonist Frank Martin (Jason Statham of "Snatch") is more than just
a top-notch driver who can get out of the worst traffic jam. Moreover,
he can kick, punch, and shoot his way out of the most ominous
predicament. In this latest entry in the trilogy, we learn that Frank is ex-special forces and led an elite commando unit for five years specializing in search and destroy. According to the authorities, Frank has been in and out of Lebanon, Syria, and Sudan. "The man is a hunter," Stappleton (Keith David) grimly informs the family of an abducted child when they arrive at his house to set up a surveillance system to track the kidnappers. The predicaments that Frank faces in "Transporter 2" make
the tough times in "The Transporter" look like a cake walk. When the
action opens, we find Frank newly transplanted from the south of France
to sunny Miami, Florida. Rather than acting as the wheel man for crazy bank
robbers or human slavers, Frank is chauffeuring a high profile
politician's son, Jack Billings (newcomer Hunter Clary), back and forth
to elementary school. Actually, Frank is helping out a friend by
temping for him. Meanwhile, Jack's parents are U.S. Drug Enforcement
Czar Billings (Matthew Modine of "Full Metal Jacket") and his neglected
wife Audrey (Amber Valetta of "What Lies Beneath"). You don't have to
be a genius to figure out that a kidnapping lies right around the bend,
and that's part of the fun of "Transporter 2." Like the previous
"Transporter," "Transporter 2" doesn't stray far from the sure-fire
formula that fueled the first movie's word-of-mouth success on DVD. Of
course, nobody could survive the close scrapes that Frank survives, but
then nobody leads a life as charming as Frank. During an early scene, Frank nimbly
thwarts a carjacking. However, Frank's sense of style makes the scene
memorable. Before he tangles with a thuggish gang of ruffians backed up
by a bimbo school girl armed with an automatic pistol, our hero sheds his recently
dry-cleaned suit jacket, folds it neatly atop his sleek, shiny car,
then demolishes the opposition without a second thought. As her
compatriots in crime lay writhing in agony on the pavement of the
parking garage around her, the school girl pitches her pistol and takes
a powder. This amusing little incident nearly makes Frank tardy for his
appointment to pick up Hunter. Punctuality guides Frank's way of
thinking. During the brief time that they have known each other, Hunter
and Frank have managed to bond. Yes, "Transporter 2" takes short-cuts
when other more realistically-oriented movies might wallow about for
twenty minutes showing the bonds as the characters forge them. Frank
and Hunter grow close enough that Hunter treats Frank as the father
that the youth wishes that his real-life dad were. Audrey notices this
bond when she isn't quarreling with her husband, who has let his duties
override his home life. Into the storyline steps tough guy Gianni
Chellini (hunky Italian thesp Alessandro Gassman of "Quiet Chaos") who dispatches his henchmen to
kidnap Hunter. As one of his ruthless henchmen--perhaps—henchwomen,
statuesque model Kate Nauta makes an impressive as well as an
intimidating killer babe called Lola. She emerges like a cross-between
of a sexy Victoria's Secrets model and a trigger-happy small arms sales
lady. She has a tattoo on her inside right thigh of a heavily armed rabbit that reads "Death by Rabbit."
Aside from one drawn-out dialogue scene between Billings' lonely wife
and Frank, "Transporter 2" never breaks its stride. Clocking in at Spartan 88
minutes, this adrenalin-laced, Twentieth Century Fox release features a
sympathetic hero, a fiendish villain, and the kind of action that
provides a sense of catharsis for audiences that love big, dumb, noisy
action movies. Two major scenes stand out for their sheer implausibility. First, Frank eludes the police by crashing through the barrier at a high-rise parking garage and plunging his automobile safely into the confines of another high-rise parking garage across the street. As if to compensate, Frank's car slides to a halt sideways at the edge of the parking garage. Second, the villains have placed an explosive device under the chassis of Frank's car and he dislodges it by launching his car into the air so that he can knock the device off by hitting a dangling block and tackle hook hanging from a gantry. The best parts of "Transporter 2" involve Frank's former nemesis, French Inspector Tarconi (Francois Berleand), who comes to visit Frank in Miami. Neither man gets to see the other until Frank wraps up the kidnapping caper. No sooner has Tarconi arrived at Frank's house than the kidnapping takes place and the U.S. Marshals descend on Frank's house in hope of catching him in residence. Instead, they find Tarconi baking madeleines. At the police station, one of the Marshals finds it interesting that Tarconi would take the liberty of using another man's kitchen. Taken aback by such questioning, Tarconi explains simply enough that he is French. Afterward, he appraises the terrible looking sandwich that the authorities have provided him and sets about using their kitchen to furnish them with something edible. This subplot and Frank's use of Tarconi to acquire information for him while he is at police headquarters is imaginative and offsets some of the preposterous quality of the action.
CINEMATIC REVELATIONS allows me the luxury of writing, editing and archiving my film and television reviews. Some reviews appeared initially in "The Commercial Dispatch" and "The Planet Weekly" and then later in the comment archives at the Internet Movie Database. IMDB.COM, however, imposes a limit on both the number of words and the number of times that an author may revise their comments. I hope that anybody who peruses these expanded reviews will find them useful.
Translate
Sunday, August 16, 2015
FILM REVIEW OF ''TRANSPORTER 2'' (2005)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment