At the very outset, Transporter 3 should make lots of women happy with Jason Statham (playing Frank Martin) taking his shirt off quite a few times! Now this is not really such a bad thing, but not necessarily such a good thing either for us guys since Jason Statham is a “guy” action hero churning out action movies that have kept us guys happy till date. The Transporter series have been Jason Statham’s star vehicles and the most successful till date and Transporter 3 continues from where the first 2 left off. Jason Statham plays a “transporter” i.e. a person whose job is to transport packages or people from point A to point B with no questions asked. He drives a fast car, speaks very little, asks no questions, and kicks a lot of ass when the bad guys get in his way and this in a nutshell is what the Transporter series is all about. Of course it is another matter (though debatable) that the BMW and the Audi that Jason Statham drives keeps us guys drooling and perfectly happy along with the slick action/martial arts. Transporter 3 is a decent to good action movie, but not in the league of the first 2 in the series though the first one directed by Cory Yuen was and still is the best of the lot. The really bad thing about Transporter 3 is its heroine Natalya Rudakova who plays a spoilt brat daughter of a Ukrainian minister, but does more disservice to the movie than anything or anyone else. She is hideous and cannot act to save her life. It might have been tolerable had she been pretty, but alas disappointing to say the least even in the looks department.
Coming to the story, Natalya Rudakova is kidnapped and a transporter hired to transport her while her father who is a Ukrainian minister (Jeroen Krabbé) is asked to sign a deal so that an evil corporation can dump toxic waste. Jeroen Krabbé is an environmentalist who is opposing such corporations and is pressing for legislation and tough action against them and predictably his daughter is kidnapped so that he can be twisted around. The kidnappers led by Robert Knepper want to hire Jason Statham for the job who refuses the job, but recommends a friend i.e. another transporter who messes up the job and crashes into Jason Statham’s home bullet ridden and dying. Before you can say whoa there Jason Statham finds he is wearing an electronic bracelet that is both a transmitter and a bomb and finds that he cannot venture beyond a certain distance from his car or else he will explode (or is that implode) along with the bracelet he is wearing. Also, the package Natalya Rudakova herself is wearing a similar bracelet with similar life threatening consequences. Jason Statham now has to transport this package to Odessa via Budapest and obviously a trail of destruction, mayhem, and dead bodies follow “The Transporter” who also finds time on the side to romance the package Natalya Rudakova and do a shirt tease!!! Too bad the bad guys don’t know enough to not mess with Jason “The Transporter” Statham what with his martial arts skills and his training as part of some covert/secret Government agency before his retirement. Jason Statham’s friend Inspector Tarconi (François Berléand) is back again for the ride as in the first two installments of the series though he knows what Jason Statham is up to by now. The rest of the cast are there mainly to be beaten beyond pulp in a couple of minutes by Jason Statham. The action is fast and furious, hand combat action sequences abound and even a chase sequence where Jason Statham chases a car on a cycle. Action sequences involving cars too abound as in the previous Transporter movies and this time around Jason Statham drives off of a bride and onto a moving train landing perfectly on it as expected. To better this Jason Statham then drives from the top of a bogie right into another bogie making yet another perfect landing. As expected the baddies get their just desserts, our hero gets the girl and everything ends well. Jason Statham is a great action hero, he talks very little or rather lets his hands and feet do the talking, carries a grimace/sullen expression very well and plays the tough action hero to the core and he deserves much better than what Transporter 3 can offer him. Of course in all probability Transporter 3 should be a smash success at the Box Office as its two predecessors, but really the franchise does not cut any new ground with this third installment and it’s more a case of three steps forward and one step back this time around. Of course it would have been much better for all concerned if the irritating and getting on your nerves Natalya Rudakova were not around, but then wishes are not horses.
Jason Statham, YOUR my favorite actor…………… i think that if your are going to ever make another movie, which i think that you should, you should put ALOT of action in it…….
