THE TRANSPORTER: Blu-Ray (Fox 2002) Fox Home Video

Falling somewhere between a Jon Woo actioner and Die-Hard wannabe, there are really only two ways to consider The Transporter (2002): either as a skillfully staged, slightly art house, high-octane chase movie, or as utterly classless/senselessly violent rubbish with a capital 'R'. Co-directed by Louis Leterrier and Corey Yuen, The Transporter is a ticking time bomb of an action flick; explosive and surreal, with enough pyrotechnics to terminate half the French Riviera. The picture stars former fashion model and race car driver, Jeremy Stratham as ex-special forces operator, Frank Martin – a resolute man of spurious means who freelances as a mercenary ‘transporter’ of any goods anyone wants moved in secrecy – no questions asked. For the dome-shaven Stratham, the picture certainly provided the proverbial ‘leg up’ in career prospects. Yet, in hindsight, Stratham has been unable to escape the picture's typecasting as a steely, incorrigible, and testosterone-driven ape with decidedly Machiavellian (choke!) principles. Sinewy and strong, Stratham performs most of his own stunts in The Transporter; a fire-powered display of mixed martial arts he first picked up while still a lad in Derbyshire, England. To suggest Stratham is athletic is a little bit like hinting that the Pope might be Catholic. Indeed, an avid footballer and diver, Stratham actually competed in the 1990 Commonwealth Games where he garnered the attention of some of the fashion industry’s top names who sought him out to model their clothing: French Connection, Tommy Hilfiger, and Levi.  From here, the leap into movies seemed almost a foregone conclusion, appearing to good effect in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998) and then, Snatch (2000).

The Transporter’s box office success resulted in a trilogy of films based on the Frank Martin character, the latter two installments, decidedly capitalizing on Stratham’s physical prowess at the expense of plot development. Indeed, for a certain generation – Stratham’s screen appeal is no more impressive than that of Jean-Claude Van Damme; albeit, with considerably more agility and finesse in the arena of performing his own stunt work.  The first movie finds Martin, the intractable thug with an impenetrable heart of stone – presumably, also void of a human soul. I suppose the strong and silent types live longer if they unload these intangibles along the way.  Besides, Frank exploits his hidden talents to the highest bidder in order to finance an envious lifestyle at his remote chateau on the Mediterranean. His latest client is ‘Wall Street’ (Matt Schulze), an American ‘businessman’ who has asked for a special shipment to be smuggled under the radar of the international police. But Martin’s curiosity is peaked when his ‘package’ begins to move. Breaking his own rule of not caring what is being transported, Martin cuts open the ‘package’ to discover a bound and gagged woman, Lai (Shu Qi) inside. Delivering Lai to her captors, Martin is asked by Wall Street to return a briefcase to another client. The case turns out to be a bomb that almost kills Martin and all but vaporizes his prized BMW.

Returning to Wall Street's lair, Martin makes mincemeat of his enemies and takes Lai back to his ocean side retreat, giving her, her freedom. The next day Inspector Tarconi (Francois Berleand) arrives with a few polite questions to which Martin offers the most evasive of answers. Unable to come up with a reason – any reason, in fact – to arrest Martin, Tarconi leaves. Shortly thereafter, Martin's home is firebombed by men loyal to Wall Street with enough of an arsenal to invade a third world country, setting into motion a revenge scenario. Martin makes an executive decision – to protect Lai and get to the bottom of the real story – rescuing Chinese exiles being smuggled into France by Wall Street as slave labor. Throughout the rest of the story, Martin will struggle to justify his own thirst for revenge against doing the right thing where Lai is concerned; an inner tug-o-war, never more sincerely investigated than on a wholly superficial level. In between these brief Hamlet-esque contemplation, Martin uses his skills as ex-military to transform the rest of the story into an MTV-styled onslaught of mind-numbing/chest-thumping action sequences. Slick and stylish, Jeremy Stratham does some truly astounding maneuvers, exercising faux karate moves. The hand to hand combat sequences are, in fact, The Transporter’s piece de résistance.

The screenplay by Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen falls into that mindless B-action movie category, but with an intelligently premised espionage tale at its center. Nevertheless, The Transporter delivers the goods – at least, for the most part. Jeremy Stratham makes ambivalent nonchalance seem like the epitome of rough-neck chic. He’s not an actor – just enough of one to make us forget and/or accept his shortcomings. His martial arts prowess and taut body are well exercised during some fairly intense fight sequences that are as much a dramatic interpretation of violence as they represent a sort of bo-hunk wish fulfillment for those testosterone-driven armchair warriors sitting in the dark of their local cinema. Directors, Leterrier and Yuen do a fairly impressive balancing act between the polar extremes of ultra-violence and exposition, and, the results are a lightning-paced but never a mind-numbing experience. The audience gets their thrills, chills and spills, plus all of the adrenaline-pumping anticipation enriched by some very impressive cinematography. Is The Transporter high art? Hardly. At times it isn't even coherent film-making. But on the whole, the narrative clings together - precariously so - and just enough to hold our attention, delivering a harmless night's worth of buff-fluff entertainment. In the final analysis, The Transporter is solid bang for your buck!

Fox’s Home Video's Blu-Ray is single-layered - a shame - but still a vast improvement over its previously issued DVD transfer. Colors on the Blu-Ray are fully saturated and stylized. Flesh tones are natural in appearance. In keeping with the stylized palette, contrast levels are bumped up just slightly with a razor-sharp clash between darks and lights. Fine details are much more evident on the Blu-Ray. The overall image is smooth and easy on the eyes. The audio is lossless HD remaster, an upgrade from the DVD's 5.1 mix and is very aggressive across all channels. Now, for the bad news. Fox continues to offer us Blu-Ray movies that do not include all of the extra features included on their DVDs! Here, we get only the audio commentary with Stratham. The deleted scenes and featurettes that were on the DVD have been dumped from the Blu-Ray. For shame!

FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)

3

VIDEO/AUDIO

3.5

EXTRAS

1