“Never change the deal.”

Justin’s rating: I still can’t say “eggs” in French! I’ll never adapt!

Justin’s review: I have a few confessions to make, so I best get them out of the way at the beginning of this review, so that you can soon go back to drinking the thick fruit cocktail syrup straight from the can.

My confessions are these. I have never had special ops training. I was not in Vietnam, nor did I single-handedly save a village of a thousand starving, wide-eyed children from Charlie. I cannot wield two of anything simultaneously, and I usually have a hard time putting a key in the lock on the first try. I do not have some sort of secret sixth sense that allows me to know when a homicidal maniac or an Amway rep is sneaking up from behind me. I don’t shrug off bullet or stab wounds very easily; in fact, usually a paper cut can put me out of commission for a good part of the day. I’m not a big fan of driving over the speed limit on highways, which means that the mere thought of jumping from a moving vehicle onto another moving vehicle makes me want to throw the heck up.

In short, I have a real hard time identifying with action movie stars, and I’ve about given up hope that Hollywood is going to call me to be even mere cannon fodder for the next shoot-’em-up film.

Everything that I’m not, Frank (Jason Statham) is. For a guy who lives a life of honorable crime, Frank sure has an unfortunate job title. I can only imagine what his next job interview will be like, when the human resources guy looks down Frank’s résumé and pauses on the phrase “The Transporter, 1999 – 2002 (Most of France)”. The next statement out of the interviewer’s mouth, I guarantee you, will be, “Beam me up, Scotty.” I can think of a few better titles than “Transporter” for a crime position that requires you to move things from point A to B, such as “Chauffeur,” “Soccer Mom,” and “FedEx Guy”.

And tell me that Soccer Mom wouldn’t be the GREATEST name for a crime action thriller, ever!

The movie explains — briefly — that Frank had some sort of previous military experience, but it doesn’t exactly go into (a) what it was, and (b) why a person would go from the U.S. military to working as a Criminal Limo Driver in France, of all places. Frank drives around, lah dee dah, and delivers packages from anywhere to anywhere as long as it doesn’t force him to violate one of his three precious “rules.”

Now, I’m just bone-weary of criminals in films being portrayed as both likable (Frank’s just a variation on the “hit man with a heart of gold who really doesn’t really want to hurt innocents”), as well as any sort of character with a “code” or “rules” that they live by. If a character has rules, then they will repeat the rules about five times before breaking each and every one by the end of the film. It’s a nauseating mix to have the two together, because it’s an obvious attempt to make an unappealing character all lovable and cuddly.

Frank expresses some pangs of conscience when he opens up one of his packages (and thus breaking a long-standing “rule” never to do so) and discovers — why not — a gorgeous Asian girl who has “meek love interest” tattooed on her forehead. Frank then realizes that, hey, he might be bad, but these people are badder, and thus must be spanked by the Semi-Righteous Palm of Hypocrisy before the end of the film.

Hey Frank? Yeah, if you’re so honorable, why don’t you just LEAVE the crime business and do something productive with your life? You can’t “sorta” be into crime, as long as it’s not too, too bad.

In the end, The Transporter is a slightly appeasing mix of several great films, including The Professional (what with a good bad guy), Die Hard (what with your balding/shaved head one man army), and — God help us all — Lethal Weapon 4 (which is where they got the incredibly glossed-over main plot).

Oh, heck, let’s make it simpler. The Transporter is The Big Hit version 2.0. All I can say that this movie truly has going for it, creatively, is one scene where all the guys get doused in oil and have a fight where they’re slipping out of each other’s, um, oiled-up grasps like flopping fish. Just one scene, take it or leave it.

Clare’s rating: Jason Statham shirtless in tight black jeans covered in oil and rolling around on the floor makes me feel funny in my pants.

Clare’s review: I was originally going to review this movie when it came out in theaters but since my only real lasting memory of the film has just been described to you in my rating, I didn’t think it would make much of a review. So I rented it and watched it again recently just to see if there was in fact anything ELSE worth recommending about The Transporter.

And while I didn’t HATE it, in fact, I’d even say I kind of liked it, The Transporter has some serious problems. Namely, it’s heavily edited in some crucial spots so as to avoid an R rating, which makes some of the fight scenes really hard to follow. There’s also a tremendously large number of continuity errors that normally I wouldn’t care about, but after a while they built up to a level of mild annoyance. The story sort of falls apart in between the action sequences, but if you’re willing to ignore that and have the patience to deal with some badly edited fighting, you might find something of value here.

Man, I think I just talked myself out of thinking this movie is any good at all. You’ll have to forgive me for my inability to decide. I’m still a little distracted by the thought Jason Statham’s muscular, naked torso covered in oil. Have I mentioned the tight black jeans yet?

More than anything, this movie is just proof to me that Mr. Statham needs to get his manager to find him an action franchise worthy of his multitude of talents. Because being scorchingly, oh-my-god-hold-me-back-bite-my-lower-lip hot is only the tip of the Statham iceberg. He’s proficient… okay, DAMN proficient at doing believable martial arts stuff. He does the fast driving and the shooting of the guns and the wooing of the women and all the other requisite successful action star STUFF with what I’d call a great deal of aplomb. He just happens to do it all in a movie that’s kind of lame and sloppily put together.

I’d say that if you don’t get your expectations up too high, don’t have anything else too pressing to do and want to watch a mindless yet well-meaning action movie, this isn’t the worst choice in the world you could make. After that I’d say that if you think that watching a really well-built man in tight black jeans covered in oil rolling around on the floor might make you feel funny in your pants too, then you should DEFINITELY see this movie.

Kyle’s rating: I suppose this could have an effect on someone’s pants, but not mine!

Kyle’s review: I rented The Transporter, and it was good. That’s pretty much the end of that. Seriously. Well, no, it was worth watching. I agree with Clare, though: it seems like there are either chunks that got cut out or there are chunks that were never there but should have been. In a perfect world, we could hop in our time machines and go back and fix everything. But this is a very crazy world, especially when you live here in California, so there is no fixing here. Only abject failure and pain.

The good part about The Transporter is that it requires absolutely nothing out of you, otherwise than about an hour and a half’s effort from your rods and cones. All those reviews from when this film first came out that were blabbing about “it’s nice to have a pure action movie again” and “Jason Statham looks great topless” knew then what I know, um, now: this is just a “popcorn” movie where you check your brain at the door and marvel at the cinematic fireworks. Does that bother you? Just have a copy of the works of Shakespeare around or something, and you’ll be okay.

I do want to say that with a little more intelligence pumped into this movie, The Transporter would be fantastic! Statham is cool and charming as an action anti-hero, and that really cute Asian captive girl is very hot. I want to get across to people that you might want to give this film a chance if you’re in the mood for fun fighting. Especially now that you can just rent it for cheap rather than risk a whole evening on going to the theater and sitting through this, and maybe getting beat up by martial arts enthusiasts in the parking lots as they display their moves.

As long as you’re secure in your sexuality (those dudes do get really greased up) and you’re secure in your girlfriend (or significant other) not being all “oooh, oiled up beefy guys” and making you feel awkward, The Transporter could be cool stuff. You can quite easily put yourself into the main character’s shoes, so you can derive some self-esteem out of the viewing. It isn’t high literature or anything, it’s just fun. Isn’t that enough sometimes?

Intermission!

• How many times must this girl be thrown into a trunk?
• At first glance, I thought he switched the girl out of the package before he gave it to the guys, but on pause it turns out that the two motorcyclists are the ones in the trunk (who also get toasted, poor guys)
• Ramen noodles – he’s living the high life
• This guy is anal about his rules, isn’t he?
• And then he leaves her by herself in the house? Wha?
• And she STAYS with her kidnapper? Wha?
• Bad guys always kill their lackeys if they’re hurt, you notice that? It’s like they have to prove how bad they are to their own henchmen. I’ll never be a henchman, people on both sides want to kill you.
• Okay, I officially want to marry a cute Japanese girl who is this domestic… sorry if that’s sexist, but she’s so attractive in the breakfast scene
• Every gun in this movie looks like they fire tracer bullets
• Everyone should have an underwater escape route in their home. Oh, and a lighthouse on top, too.
• Hot men oil wrestling, coming through!
• Kissing a dead guy for air, ew
• It’s possible to chase down a plane
• Aw, you killed your father, you get a hug!