THE TRANSPORTER

In The Transporter, Jason Statham (“Turkish” from Snatch) plays a man who transports anything for the right price, as long as you follow his rules. He soon finds out what happens when he breaks his own rules. There are major fight scenes, a killer chase and a very attractive Asian love interest for Turkish. But then the film comes to a screeching halt when the French police inspector shows up. This mush-mouthed bastard had whole scenes where I couldn't understand a fucking word he said! Was he speaking French? Did they forget the subtitles? No, he was just French-- and you could tell by his outrageous accent.
This movie can't quite decide what it wants to be. Written by Luc Besson (The Fifth Element) and Robert Mark Kamen (The Karate Kid 1-3, The One), I could go through this thing line by line and tell you what Besson wrote. Some parts feel just like his intelligent criminal movies (La Femme Nikita and Leon) and the others reveal director Corey Yuen's last gig, Jet Li's The One. This back and forth from one genre to another made me want to scream at the screen for them to make up their goddamned minds.
There are holes in the plot big enough to drive a semi through, but Turkish uses the semi for the coolest take-the-convoy-away-from-the-bad-guys sequence since Raiders of the Lost Ark. He uses bicycles, clothing, and four-way tire irons straight out of a Jackie Chan flick, to dispatch foes. It left me with that after-the-movie energy that makes you want to pick fights with bums. In fact, I'm still apologizing to my roommate because I choked him with a t-shirt and he had to miss work.
If you're looking for an entertaining action flick you could do worse than The Transporter. Sure, it needs subtitles for English-speaking actors, but Statham is a damn entertaining action star. This one's worth seeing at matinee price, because you'll learn some new moves to try out on those repeat trick-or-treaters.