Jason Statham has one specific character that occupies an interesting point along the evolutionary path of action heroes. He’s at the middle of a spectrum between that one guy Jackie Chan always plays, who is incredibly dangerous for someone who doesn’t want trouble, and the borderline psychopaths of the ’80s like Marion Cobretti.
Sure, Frank Martin can beat up 20 guys while only armed with his own tie, but he actually has friends, doesn’t kill everyone he sees, and even tries to de-escalate a few situations. In the truly two-dimensional field of action movie protagonists, Frank Martin rises above the pack by occasionally coming off like he has interests besides violence.
It’s a weird bit of substance in a franchise that’s otherwise all style. The Transporter movies are a showcase for stuntman work, full of crazy fights and crazier car chases. If you’re unfamiliar, the highest-grossing (and worst-reviewed) movie in the original trilogy, Transporter 3, started streaming free on Tubi on July 1. Check it out for yourself.
Frank Martin is a professional driver who’s willing to take any job, from evading the police to getting your kid to school on time, as long as his clients are willing to follow his three specific rules: don’t change the deal once it’s been struck, never exchange names, and never open the package.
When Transporter 3 begins, however, he’s on vacation in the French Riviera. Since Frank’s not working, he turned his latest job over to a colleague. One night, that colleague crashes a car through the wall of Frank’s home. He’s on the verge of death with a strange bracelet on his arm and a Ukrainian girl named Valentina in his passenger seat. When Frank sends his colleague away in an ambulance, the bracelet explodes.
Frank subsequently gets strong-armed into finishing his late colleague’s job: drive a package, and Valentina, from France to Hungary. That unwittingly puts Frank into the center of an international blackmail scheme, racing against a clock he can’t see.
Transporter 3 has a couple of things working against it, which explains some of its poor critical reception. One is Valentina, played by newcomer Natalya Rudakova, who’s forced to spend much of the film being pointedly obnoxious. It’d be a rough lift of a role for an experienced actress and native English speaker, but Rudakova is neither.
The other is that its basic premise means that much of it’s spent inside a moving car, while Frank’s French cop buddy Tarconi (François Berléand) tries to figure out who’s trying to punch Frank’s ticket. While Transporter 3 has a few good action sequences whenever Statham’s allowed to get out from behind the wheel, it’s necessarily a more grounded thriller compared to the previous two movies. There might be a little too much Jason Bourne in this movie’s soup.
Taken on its own merits, however, Transporter 3 is compulsively watchable. It’s never boring, and just when you think it’s forgotten what franchise it’s in, Frank pulls off another feat of driving skill that flies in the face of physics, common sense, and God Himself. There’s a chase scene in Transporter 3 that would get laughed out of a Fast & Furious movie for being too silly (in retrospect, it’s weird that Statham’s ostensibly playing a different character in the F&F films), but it’s still entertaining as hell. If you were to binge all three films in one night, Transporter 3 would send your marathon off on a comparatively low note, but even a weak Transporter is still a pretty good time at the movies.
If Crank is Statham at his most cartoonish, then the Transporter films are him at his most anime. These movies have always been about looking cool above all else, and as long as you’re prepared to rock with that, you can’t help but have a good time.
Transporter 3 is now streaming on Tubi.
