Tall, wiry, British
actor Ed Skrein resembles the late Hollywood superstar actor James Coburn of
the “Our Man Flint” franchise. Not only
does Skrein make a suitable substitute for brawny Jason Statham in “The
Transporter Refueled” (***1/2 OUT OF ****), but Skrein also appears agile enough
to carry EuropaCorp’s cinematic reboot on the strength of his personality. Skrein
and Statham are cut from the same cloth. Muscular, crew-cut, and rough
hewn, these fellows tote a stick around on their shoulders and dare somebody
presumptuous to knock it off. Statham
looks more like a traditional movie hero because he fits Frank Martin like a
surgical glove. Skrein looks like a far younger Frank Martin, and I
believe writer/producer Luc Besson cast the former “Game of Thrones” actor for
this quality. Skrein looks like he was born to kick butt, and he radiates
a raw-edged spontaneity that makes him ideal as Statham’s replacement. Add
to it his blue-collar British accent, and Skrein is reminiscent of Michael
Caine when he was a Young Turk. Clearly, if the franchise performs at the
box office like the Statham trilogy, Skrein could own the role until he sheds
that lean, hungry, wolfish tenacity that he brings to his younger Frank Martin.
Meantime, “Brick
Mansions” director Camille Delamarre stages several dynamic scenes in this
swiftly-paced, $22-million thriller with as many audacious but entertaining
escapades as any of Statham’s “Transporter” epics ever delivered. Instead
of Inspector Marcel Tarconi (François Berléand) interfering with Frank Martin's
activities, the new Transporter has to put up with his dear old dad, and British
actor Ray Stevenson relishes the parental role with scene-stealing charm. Stevenson
and Skrein have chemistry together, and it will be a sad day when one or the
other departs from the franchise. Naturally, the production values are stunning;
the scenery is gorgeous; the close-quarters combat scenes savage enough; the sexy
babes provocative; and Michel Julienne's careening car chase sequences are exhilarating.
Neither Delamarre nor
scenarists Adam Cooper and Bill Cottage of the forthcoming “Allegiant: Part 1,”
including Luc Besson of the original “Transporter,” have tampered with the
formula. Indeed, the same rules still
stand in “The Transporter Refueled.” First, Frank dictates that the deal
must never change. Second, Frank insists
on no names. Third, Frank never opens
the package. The melodrama of either any
“Transporter” movie or television episode grows out of our hero’s decision to
break his own rules. This time around
Frank Martin doesn’t have to second guess French Police Inspector Tarconi,
because Tarconi wasn’t written into “Refueled.” Instead, Frank Martin must forever contend
with his father’s constant criticism. Frank, Senior (Ray Stevenson of
“Punisher—War Zone”) is a former British Intelligence agent who has been put
out to pasture and doesn’t savor the prospect of listening to his arteries
hardening. Actually, Frank, Senior, probably wouldn’t have volunteered
for some of the shenanigans that he finds himself embroiled in, but he behaves
as if his heart were in it. Of course, young Frank, or ‘Junior,’ as his
father affectionately refers to him throughout this rugged, PG-13 rated,
96-minute opus, gets tangled up with a quartet of duplicitous dames.
Anna (Loan Chabanol
of “Fading Gigolo”) contacts Frank at a restaurant after he refuses to discuss
a deal over the phone. No sooner has our hero picked up this brunette in
a blond wig the next day in front of a bank than he discovers that she has
duped him. Anna promised him two
packages, but two more brunettes in blond wigs with bundles of loot join them.
As it turns out, these two babes, Gina (Gabriella Wright of “22 Bullets”) and Qiao
(newcomer Wenxia Yu) as well as Maria (Tatiana Pajkovic of “Nynne”), constitute
a quartet of Musketeers. Anna’s money
grubbing mother sold her daughter into prostitution for $500. Like Gina, Maria, and Qiao, Anna has decided
to stop taking things lying down. She cooks up an ambitious scheme to
wreck revenge on their despicable pimps who are raking in hundreds of millions while
the girls wind up doing all the grunt work.
“The Transporter Refueled”
features unsavory villains who deal in prostitution and human trafficking. They would rather slit your throats than spit
on you, and they eliminate their chief competition on the French Riviera with
gunfire during the first quarter hour. Not long afterward, Anna finds
herself forced to ply her comely wares on the streets. Fifteen years
elapse, and Anna has grown up and dreams up a plan to pay back the dastards who
forced her onto her back to make them millions. These girls quote Dumas:
“All for one, and one for all.” They take Frank, Senior, hostage to get Frank,
Junior to cooperate. Before we’re treated to Anna’s grandiose scheme, we
get to watch the new Frank Martin stomp a quintet of hoods who insist that he
surrender his black, Audi S8 car to them in a parking garage.
“The Transporter
Refueled” is beautifully lensed, but formulaic nonsense. I enjoyed it as
much as the three Statham epics and the two-season, Chris Vance “Transporter”
television series. Radivoje Bukvic, Yuri Kolokolnikov, and Lenn
Kudrjawizki--the actors who play the villains--are cut from the same dangerous
cloth as Skrein. These guys make the kind of surefire villains that are
appropriate for a gritty, hard-edged crime movie like “The Transporter
Refueled.” The close-quarters combat
scenes resemble those that Statham had in his trilogy. At one point, the
new “Transporter” dukes it out with three adversaries in a room crammed with
filing cabinets. The kinetic choreography of this fisticuffs scene is
both inspired and ferocious. When our hero isn’t battering his formidable
opponents with his fists, he is slamming shut their various appendages in
cabinet drawers. These fights bristle with an amusing Jackie Chan vibe. Camille
Delamarre doesn’t squander a second and emphasizes the outlandish. A gritty
underworld saga of revenge, deceit, and Tarantino-like showdowns, "The
Transporter Refueled" propels its narrative like a high-octane blend of
white-knuckled adrenaline and fresh harsh faces.
