FILM REVIEW OF ''TRANSPORTER 2'' (2005)

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.

FILM REVIEW OF ''TAKEN'' (2009)

The new Liam Neeson kidnap thriller "Taken" (*** out of ****) qualifies as both entertaining and predictable. Ostensibly, the message here is parents should think twice before they turn their fun-loving, 17-year old daughters loose in Paris, France, without an escort. "District B-13" director Pierre Morel appropriates many of the clichés and conventions of kidnapping thrillers, but he ramps up the violence marginally for this PG-13 thriller while suspending any vestige of realism. The result is an exciting and suspenseful yarn about a "Rambo" style father who takes names and kicks butt.

Although it doesn't concern ransom demands, "Taken" resembles the 1985 Arnold Schwarzenegger kidnap thriller "Commando." However, "Taken" isn't half as good as the Schwarzenegger saga. Mind you, Neeson's sympathetic performance as a doting, never-say-die dad in pursuit of the evildoers who abducted his only daughter keeps things interesting. The villains in the formulaic screenplay by Luc Besson & Robert Mark Kamen, who together wrote both "The Transporter" and "Kiss of the Dragon," are as sleazy as maggots. The problem is no one single actor or character emerges who can match Neeson blow for blow. Big dumb action thrillers need a chief villain that we can genuinely loathe and that the hero can lock horns with in a struggle to the death. "Taken" assembles too many trigger-happy miscreants that Neeson dispatches as easily as ten-pins in a bowling alley.

"Taken" finds former CIA agent Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson of "Schindler's List") living in Los Angeles so he can be near his estranged daughter Kim (Maggie Grace of TV's "Lost") who lives with her mother, Lenore (Famke Janssen of "GoldenEye"), and Stuart (Xander Berkeley of "Air Force One")her affluent stepfather. Lenore and Bryan were divorced years ago because Bryan's job as a 'preventer' for Langley kept him from spending quality time not only with Kim but also her mother. Lenore has nothing but contempt for Bryan and does her best to keep him at arm's length from Kim. Indeed, Bryan lost his job with 'the Company' because he flew 9-thousand miles to celebrate Kim’s birthday while he was on duty elsewhere in the world.

Morel and his scenarists stress Bryan's deep love for his daughter. They show him pasting Kim’s new photos into a scrapbook that contains pictures from each birthday. Bryan finds himself out-classed by Stuart at Kim's 17th birthday party when he gives her a karaoke player while Stuart gives her a horse. Kim still loves Bryan, but she is growing up and a girl has to do what a girl has to do, especially when her best friend Amanda (Katie Cassidy of "Black Christmas") persuades her to fly with her to Paris to stay with her relatives. Before Kim can accompany Amanda, she has to get Bryan's written authorization, but our hero doesn't like the set-up. He worries about what could happen to them, even though Kim assures him that they will only be touring museums. Reluctantly, Bryan breaks down and signs the form, but he demands that Kim take an international cell phone with his number programmed into it.

No sooner have the girls landed than Amanda gets the 'hots' for a Parisian pretty boy named Peter (Nicolas Giraud of "Second Soufflé") who shares a taxi with them. In this respect, "Taken" recalls the R-rated "Hostel" where sexy girls lured lusty lads into a death trap in Eastern Europe. Peter invites them to a party, but the girls never make it. Peter phones a gang of grimy Albanians that operate a white slavery ring. In other words, they shanghai young girls, pump them full of narcotics, and force them into prostitution. Kim is on the phone with Bryan when the villains invade the apartment where Amanda's relatives live. Unfortunately, Amanda's relatives are gone on a vacation, too. Bryan coaches Kim about what to do even as the thugs come after her and drag her screaming out from under a bed.

Predictably, Lenore is distraught when she learns what has happened. Bryan's CIA buddies provide our hero with a wealth of information about the Albanians. They inform Bryan, however, that he has only 96 hours before he will lose Kim forever. Essentially, Kim will be sold to the highest bidder and be a sex slave until she dies. Bryan has Stuart arrange air passage for him to Paris, and our hero pulls out his black bag of tricks. Bryan contacts an old colleague with French intelligence, Jean-Claude (Olivier Rabourdin of "The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc"), but he wants Bryan to leave the country. Bryan warns his old friend that he is prepared to tear down the Eiffel Tower to get his daughter back. Secretly, Jean-Claude assigns a team to shadow Bryan. Eventually, Bryan locates the Albanians and inflicts heavy losses on them, but cannot find Kim. Bryan manages to rescue a girl who may know of Kim's whereabouts. He helps her recover from the drugs that the villains have injected in her, and she gives Bryan a lead.

Ten years ago Harrison Ford would probably have played Liam Neeson's part. Meanwhile, Neeson behaves believably enough to convince us that he is as a savvy as Matt Damon's Jason Bourne and can get into and out of the toughest predicaments imaginable. Bryan shoots, stabs, kills, fights, and tortures the treacherous Albanians until he gets what he wants. Indeed, Neeson resembles an indestructible Steven Seagal hero who can triumph over well-nigh impossible odds. Famke Janssen is relegated to the thankless role of the distraught mother, and Maggie Grace is hopelessly clueless as Kim. The Parisian locales look gritty enough, and our hero has his hands full the whole time, right up to the final showdown on a sheik's yacht.

Despite its paucity of realism and reliance on clichés, "Taken" benefits from Neeson's stalwart performance and Morel's vigorous staging of the action that never loses its momentum throughout its nimble 93 minutes.

REVIEW OF ''SHATTERED'' aka "Butterfly on a Wheel" (2007)

Some movies are easy to criticize in a review, pointing out the positive and the negative while applauding or panning those involved. Other movies, like the Pierce Brosnan & Gerald Butler melodrama “Shattered” (**** out of ****) [a.k.a. “Butterfly on a Wheel”] pose difficulties because you cannot plunge into details without divulging crucial plot points that would ruin the film's mystery and suspense for folks who want to see it. I thoroughly enjoyed “Shattered,” but my closest and dearest friends absolutely detested it from start to finish. Evidently, the film did not fare well at the box office because it didn’t play in the sticks where I live, Columbus, Mississippi, and it didn’t last long in theaters. Since I don't subscribe to the crappy cable where I lived, little did I know that it premiered on TNT. I envy those audiences that did see it in theaters. Again, I had a blast watching this tense, white-knuckled suspense thriller.

The first time that I saw Mike Barker's "Shattered," I watched it with the commentary track playing because I had bought it used at a Movie Gallery sale and I wanted to have some idea about what was happening in case the DVD skipped and I had to wait any length of time before I could replace it. I’ve never had a problem watching a movie that I learn stuff about as I am watching it. In fact, the second time that I watched "Shattered," I appreciated it the way some people savor good food. Now, the married couple that saw "Shattered" took an immediate dislike to it and the surprise ending didn't leaving them gasping, and they generally didn’t like anything about it, especially Maria Bello.

Pierce Brosnan, the former James Bond on the big-screen and Remington Steele on the small screen, has been monkeying around with his cinematic persona since the Bond producers sent him packing after "Die Another Day." He let his belly hang out in “After the Sunset,” admittedly a routine caper film, and most recently, he sang in “Mama Mia.” Between these epics, Brosnan played the villain in “Shattered” and he is convincing without going overboard as a psychotic lunatic.

An unshaven renegade with a grudge, Tom Ryan (Pierce Brosnan) forces his way into the lives of successful Chicago advertising executive Neil Randal (Gerald Butler of “300”) and his pretty blond wife Abby (Maria Bello of “Payback”) as Neil is taking Abby off to a girls’ night out rendezvous before he leaves on a jet for a trip with his boss. No sooner have our happily married couple hit the road than Tom pops up out of the backseat and holds them at gunpoint. Not surprisingly, Neil and Abby react with shock and their shock intensifies when Tom explains that the babysitter is part of his grand kidnapping scheme. Tom assures the Randalls that with his cell phone he can order his accomplice to kill their adorable little girl Sophie if they refuse to follow his orders.

Now, if you’re the kind of person that likes to pick holes in plots before the film has even reached its climax, you will HATE “Shattered.” My friends were bombarding me with questions and trying to guess the outcome. The wife had figured part of it out, but there was a red herring that threw them off the scent for a while. Anyway, Tom has been watching Neil so we know that he knows something and the something that Tom knows is the exact amount of Neil’s bank account, over $142-thousand dollars. At this point, we know that Neil is an egotistical sort of guy and that he has a knack for landing big accounts at his advertising agency. The Randalls have a luxurious house in the Chicago suburbs and Abby is a photographer. She appears to be happy with her husband because the sky seems to be the limit for Neil. Neil has a lot of tenacity and he isn’t afraid to admit it. He is a tiger at what he does, until he runs into Tom. At the bank, Neil and Abby withdraw everything and hand it over in an attaché case to Tom. Tom wastes no time. He pulls out a sheaf of bills and sets fire to it and then he drops the burning currency into the attaché case and tosses it lock, stock, and barrel off a bridge in Chicago.

Indeed, “Shattered” is for all practical purposes a kidnap thriller and initially I was intrigued but grew impatient with it. However, the more that I watched it, the more entertaining it became. Nobody gave a bad performance and I loved the surprise ending. Unfortunately, I don’t want to say anything else, except I feel that “Shattered” qualifies as an excellent, edge-of-your seat movie and happily most of the people who wrote about it at Amazon shared my sentiments. The filmmakers took the original title "Butterfly on a Wheel" from an Alexander Pope poem that basically translates as smashing a butterfly with a hammer with a fly swatter would serve the same purpose. Once you see the film, you'll understand the title. I love watching Maria Bello in any film and I wish that her career were more prestigious than it is because she is a talented lady. Altogether, my review doesn’t do justice to this spine-tingling, nail-biter that ripples with one surprise after another surprise.

“Shattered” is in the same league with the fantastic David Fincher thriller “The Game with Michael Douglas and Mikael Håfström’s “Derailed” with Clive Owen. Although "Shattered" carries an R-rating, there is no nudity, little bloodshed, but several tense moments and Ashley Rowe's scintillating widescreen photography at times may induce vertigo.