The Transporter is a 2002 English-language French action-thriller film directed by Corey Yuen and Louis Leterrier, and written by Luc Besson, who was inspired by BMW Films' The Hire series. The film stars Jason Statham as Frank Martin, a driver for hire—a mercenary "transporter" who will deliver anything, anywhere, no questions asked—for the right price. It also stars Shu Qi as Lai Kwai. It is the first installment in the Transporter franchise, succeeded by three sequels, Transporter 2 and Transporter 3, The Transporter Refueled, and a.
Plot
Frank Martin is a highly skilled driver/mercenary whose callsign is "The Transporter". He will transport anything, no questions asked, always on time, and is the best in the business. He strictly follows three rigid rules when transporting:
Once a deal is made, it is final
No names
Never open the package
At Frank's villa on the Mediterranean, local Police Inspector Tarconi questions Frank about the black BMW that fled the scene of a robbery Frank was a getaway driver for. However, lacking any real proof, Tarconi leaves. Frank is then hired to deliver a package of to an American, Darren "Wall Street" Bettencourt, that is loaded into Frank's trunk. While changing a flat tire, Frank notices the package moving. Realizing a person is inside, he violates his third rule in order to give the person something to drink. He discovers a woman, tied up and gagged. She attempts to escape but Frank recaptures her and returns her to the trunk along with two policemen who spot them. Frank delivers the package to Bettencourt as promised and agrees to another job, transporting a briefcase. As he stops to buy drinks for the cops in his trunk, a bomb hidden in the briefcase explodes. Out for vengeance, Frank returns to Bettencourt's villa where he kills and wounds several henchmen. Frank then steals a car to get away, only to find "the package" bound and gagged in the back seat. He brings the young woman, whose named is Lai, back to his house. Bettencourt visits one of his surviving men in hospital in order to determine who attacked his residence, before killing the man after discovering that Frank is alive. The next day, Tarconi arrives and asks about Frank's car, which Frank claims was stolen. Lai supports Frank's alibi by introducing herself as his new cook and girlfriend. Tarconi again leaves with no concrete evidence. Shortly after, Bettencourt's henchmen fire missiles down on the house. Frank and Lai barely escape to a nearby safe house. While being questioned at the police station, Lai accesses Tarconi's computer to find information on Bettencourt. Lai tells Frank that Bettencourt is a human trafficker with 400 Chinese trapped in shipping containers, including her family. Lai and Frank go to Bettencourt's office, where Bettencourt reveals that Lai's father, Kwai, is also a human trafficker and Bettencourt's partner in crime. Kwai arrives and his henchmen subdue Frank. When Tarconi arrives, Kwai and Bettencourt accuse Frank of kidnapping Lai. Tarconi has Frank arrested and locked up in the station. Realizing Frank would not be constrained by search warrants, Tarconi agrees to aid Frank's escape as his faux hostage. Frank then tracks the criminals to the docks, where they load the containers onto trucks. However, Frank is spotted and forced to fight his way through the guards, and fails to stop the trucks. He then steals a small airplane and parachutes onto one of the trucks. After a lengthy fight, Frank manages to kill Bettencourt and some of his henchmen, only to be ambushed by Kwai once he gets out of the truck. However, Frank is saved when Lai reluctantly shoots her father. Afterwards, Tarconi arrives with the police, and they rescue some of the people trapped inside the two containers.
The Transporter premiered in 2,573 theaters. With a production budget of $20.5 million, it grossed $25,296,447 in the United States and a total of $43,928,932 worldwide.
Cut and uncut releases
The film was cut to receive a PG-13 rating in the United States, and this version was also released in the United Kingdom and several other countries. Japan and France received the uncut versions. Certain sequences of violence were either cut or toned down for the PG-13 cut. These include:
The fight on the bus, which included Frank using a knife.
The final fight on the highway, where Frank fights Wall Street in the truck. In the original French version, Wall Street is crushed beneath the wheels of the truck after Frank throws him from it. In the US PG-13 version, he is simply thrown out of the truck and onto the highway.
The uncut fight on the bus can be seen in the "Extended Fight Sequences" on the North American DVD, but with no sound. The Japanese region-free Blu-ray cut of this film has the original uncut French version of the film. It also has several special features and deleted scenes. However, it does not include the North American special feature of the uncut fight scenes. The uncut version of Transporter 2 is also included in this special boxed set.
† indicates that the song did not appear in the film
Home media
The DVD version was released on 23 October 2003. It included fifteen minutes of extended fight scene footage and a feature-length commentary. On 23 August 2005, the film was released again in a "Special Delivery Edition". This version included all the features of the original release plus a new behind-the-scenes documentary, a making-of featurette, and a storyboard-to-film comparison. The film was also released as a part of "The Transporter Collection", which featured the first two films in the series. A Blu-ray format was released on 14 November 2006.
Reception
gives the film a score of 54% based on reviews from 127 critics and an average rating of 5.6 out of 10. The site's consensus reads: "The Transporter delivers the action at the expense of coherent storytelling." At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film received an average score of 51 based on 27 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Manohla Dargis, of the Los Angeles Times, complimented the action, saying, " certainly seems equipped to develop into a mid-weight alternative to Vin Diesel. That's particularly true if he keeps working with director Corey Yuen, a Hong Kong action veteran whose talent for hand-to-hand mayhem is truly something to see." Roger Ebert wrote, "Too much action brings the movie to a dead standstill." Eric Harrison, of the Houston Chronicle, said, "It's junk with a capital J. The sooner you realize that, the more quickly you can settle down to enjoying it."
