This movie gets off to a decent start, with Jason Statham in his element, dressed as a priest, pulling off a heist, surviving a near-death experience then picking himself back up and getting the ball rolling again — now he’s a man on a mission, to take the big score from those who betrayed him and get revenge for them attempting to kill him.
36 mins in, just as Statham’s character is creating a new identity and a new life for himself, to escape troubles and prep for his new project, we meet the woman who will became the lead female in this movie — Jennifer Lopez, playing the role of an estate agent who Statham’s character meets and becomes close to.
While the ‘cool’ factor and glamour-action vibe are pretty strong in this movie, and the chemistry between Statham & Lopez is strong, the thinness of plot and over-run of gritty gory scenes and distressing drama result in a dampening of the overall rating, ending in a score of just Above Average, although the back end is a bit smoother than the front (not dissimilar to J-Lo in that regard, who’s still looking well in her early 40s here).
Strange thing is how Statham stays loyal to an average woman and rejects his opportunity with Lopez’s character — quite unrealistic I think, although stranger things have happened.
This movie has a simple concept but it does well to stay quite entertaining. It’s got a vibe similar to some of Van Damme’s and Scott Adkins’s movies — especially the ones where they’re in prison and forced to compete in lethal competitions for the entertaining of the viewing public. But this one has a twist — it’s based around lethal car racing. A bit like Robot Wars, with drivers. It even has a ‘house robot’.
Although its plot is simplistic and it has the odd dull patch, it’s mostly good, and occasionally very good, so I’m going to rate it Decent. This is of course helped by the Jason Statham‘s female partner in the movie — not his wife who is murdered, but his co-driver played by the beautiful Natalie Martinez — she definitely boosts the watchability of this movie. Other supporting cast members are generally decent too.
The ending was generally a good one — nice action but not topping earlier on, and a pleasant end to the story.
Sequels
If you enjoyed this movie you may be pleased to know it’s had a few sequels. But don’t get too excited yet.
There’s 4 Death Race movies in total, although Statham doesn’t come back after the first, and neither does Martinez. The 2nd and 3rd are starring Luke Goss from the Hitman remake called Agent 47 (not as good as Timothy Olyphant’s original) and the fourth Death Race movie sees a prior cast member in Danny Trejo take the lead role — he may look the part but when he’s the lead in a movie it’s generally a stinker (Machete for example).
Death Race 2 (2010) is pitched in a way that imitates the coolness of the original, showing Goss and his female co-star posing as the overwhelming feature of the movie poster, but frankly you only need to look at them to see they’re a poundshop/dollarstore imitation of Statham & Martinez. I rate it So-So, which is about 4 levels weaker than the original according to our rating system at the time of writing this review.
Death Race 3, I rate a couple of levels worse still — Barely Watchable.
Death Race 4 was even worse — literally Unwatchable.
Jason Statham singlehandedly holds down this movie, which is full of cheap action and sleaze. It follows a Taken-like theme except it’s not Statham’s daughter who’s taken, it’s his friend’s daughter who he vowed to protect.
I rate this movie So-So, because it shows Statham in his element but he’s clearly been given very little to work with here. It’s of a similar vibe to a cheap Seagal movie from before they became unwatchably bad.
This movie gets off to a surprisingly good start, considering I expected it was a Jason Statham movie but didn’t expect to see Robert De Niro with him in the opening scene. It’s not a fast action scene, but it’s a strong early sign of a high quality movie to come.
By 50 minutes in, it’s clear that De Niro’s role is a minor one, and the movie is a bit slow and gritty — even the odd fast action scene is a bit monotonous. So it’s not quite the slick, smart action packed adventure I was hoping for. As the movie continues, the action is patchy. It gets alright in spells before slowing down again, but seems like low budget work. In the end, I’d rate this movie slightly Below Average since it’s very one dimensional and although it has some strong attributes it’s largely mediocre still. Jason Statham basically carries this movie, with the help of a respectable supporting cast and practically zero plot. It’s a story an infant could have put together. It’s also allegedly based on a true story.
The first half hour of this movie is Watchable but not entirely pleasant or fun viewing, as the backstory is being built. But half an hour in, when Jason Statham meets the mathematical savant Chinese girl, when he’s on the verge of suicide and sees a load of mobsters tracking her down, and takes it upon himself to help her out, the movie comes alive. Not that the script becomes outstanding, but the action picks up as Statham finds a reason to live, and the mood becomes more watchable as we follow their unlikely partnership as they evade three separate gsngs (the Chinese, the Russians and the cops) all of whom want the information she’s memorised and are willing to go to war over it. Having said that, the moment it gets interesting, it pretty much immediately plateaus. The script and action have already peaked and don’t really get any better from here on out – it only turns into a mess of dry, disorganised action & drama. As such, although it built up to a very interesting point around 30 minutes in, rewatchers can easily be forgiven for skipping the last hour – practically nothing is lost by skipping the end long rote ending, especially if you’ve seen it a few times before.
High expectations are set for action hero movie fans from 60 seconds in as Tom Cruise bumps into Jason Statham – this can’t not be a good movie now! The next 10+ minutes proceed to be a slow but mostly smooth character-building, scene-setting spout of drama as we follow a taxi driver around down. Around the 15 minute mark, Tom Cruise finally gets into the cab and hopefully some action will emerge. The energy is well paced thus far. The screenplay, cinematography and mood-setting is not bad. But the plot is very thin and the script is very slow thus far, so this movie seems like it could go either way – it could be an awesome concept or a terribly underwhelming stinker, let’s see.
In the end it turns out to be somewhere in between. I rate it Below Average. It’s got a cool concept, and a couple of cool actors, but is massively lacking in the action department. Although the genre is pretty good – it’s about a slick-moving professional assassin – the actual action is generally very slow – it’s more like a drama in that regard, minus most of the arguments. It’s not much ado about nothing, but it’s little ado about something. Slightly Below Average seems a fair rating for this movie which does remarkably well in holding attention considering so little is actually going on. It reminds me of an early Connery era Bond movie in this regard, except they had a bit more going on! The ending gets a bit gritty too – thus it’s highly skippable, along with many patches of this movie, if you’ve seen it before.
The Mechanic is a decent little movie starring Jason Statham as an assassin who is betrayed by his employer, tricked into killing his mentor, then trains up his dead mentor’s son who eventually attempts to kill Jason’s character in revenge when he discovers who killed his own father. That’s the plot in a nutshell, with a few interesting assassination scenes.
Jason Statham is his usual self – a cold to luke-warm character with a generally serious demeanour, athletic in fighting and kitted out with some good equipment. His trainee and would-be killer is played by Ben Foster who does a fair job – not amazingly captivating but not a terrible actor either – just somewhere in between. There aren’t really any other actors in this movie who get a good amount of screen time, it’s really quite simplistic. I rate it slightly lower than Assassination Games since that movie had two stars in one movie, and slightly better mood setting especially around Van Damme’s home, but it was a similar genre and had a similar level of action, entertainment value and plot busyness.
Don’t miss the stronger sequel
If you enjoyed The Mechanic (2011) don’t forget to watch the sequel, Mechanic Resurrection (2016) where Jason Statham returns in a similar role but with a more interesting plot, and is joined by Jessica Alba and Tommy Lee Jones. I’d say the sequel comfortably better than the original.
Straight into the good stuff that we know & love from Transporter 1, this movie begins with Jason Statham in his element with a fancy car and a gang of thugs trying to steal it.
It then proceeds with Jason playing difficult cryptic word games with an energetic young child – something only a disengaged nerdy adult in Hollywood could come up with – probably an attempt to build plot and characters but it’s very unrealistic not to mention incredibly boring for this genre – sack the guy who dragged that bit out. It should have been a much shorter feature and/or much easier and more fun.
François Berléand rejoins us as Inspector Tarconi – this is one of the best things about this movie. This time he’s on vacation, gets raided by a swat team for his association with Frank Martin (Jason Statham’s character) then discretely helps him out via the FBI database.
Good to see Shannon ‘the Cannon’ Briggs given a minor role. Let’s Go Champ! For those who don’t know, he still holds the record for the most round 1 knockouts in professional heavyweight boxing history.
Jason Flemyng did very well as Dimitri the scientist.
Kate Nauta performed well as an over-sexualised LGBT type baddie with guns – not to my taste but she put her heart into it – credit where it’s due.
Amber Valletta put in a bog standard performance as an anaemic-looking lead female character with whom Jason’s character was almost intimate.
Plot was a bit one dimensional to say the least – clearly pushing a theme of contagions and injectable cures. Nice shiny vials. Poor scene building. Filthy motives.
Still, there’s plenty of well made car chases and combat scenes to give us what we came for. With a more present & fertile lead female character worthy of credible romance, and a more creative and less malintended plot than the one we’ve got, and one or two better adversaries (or more character-building & screentime given to the better actors already cast here) this movie could have been about as successful as Transporter 1, but as it stands, it’s markedly inferior but not massively so. I give Transporter 2 a decent 7.5/10 rating. Best watched in close succession with the first and third movies.
This movie is maybe slightly downhill from Transporter 2, but still a decent movie. It’s quite one dimensional in plot and lacking strong cast members aside from Jason Statham (The Transporter) and François Berléand (Inspector Tarconi). But there was a fair amount of the action we came for.
Robert Knepper did a decent job as the main antagonist in this movie even though he had very little plot to work with – aside from the final fight scene he scarcely did anything but make a few phone calls.
Natalya Rudakova was given plenty of screen time as the lead female in this movie. She played the kidnapped daughter of a politician, accompanying Jason throughout his journey. Her style may be pleasing to some, but for me it was quite basic and underwhelming. Horses for courses I guess.
The producers seem to have a thing for catwalk-skinny freckly ginger chicks, after Kate Nauta (a natural ginger, dyed blonde) was cast as the main muscle of the bad guys in Transporter 2 and now Natalya Rudakova (a natural ginger) is cast as the lead female in Transporter 3 – there’s more than a little resemblance between them.
This is the third movie in the saga – Jason and François did not come back for the fourth so it’s probably worth watching the first three sequentially then maybe skipping the fourth. While the budget kept going up, from $20M (for Transporter 1) to $30M (for Transporter 2) to $40M (for Transporter 3), the quality gradually decreased with each iteration of the movie – so it’s no surprise Jason and François decided to call it a day with this saga and new lead actors were hired for Transporter 4. But the good news is, Jason is rumoured to be coming back for Transporter 5 in 2025 – stay tuned for that.
This movie is a little bit more interesting than the original, with a better plot and a better supporting cast.
Jason Statham is in his element here, as an assassin tasked with overcoming more adversity this time round than before. He’s given a series of difficult assassination missions to complete in order to save his girlfriend who is being held hostage.
Jessica Alba plays his girlfriend – she does a solid job in this lead female role.
Tommy Lee Jones also does very well in his supporting role that has only a small amount of screen time towards the end of the movie.
Sam Hazeldine does a decent job as the chief baddie in this movie.
Michelle Yeoh performs adequately, albeit with a snotty nose, as a friend of Statham’s character who looks after a resort where he keeps a safe house – she gets a good amount of screen time.
All in all, I rate Mechanic Resurrection (2016) one or two levels higher than the original Mechanic (2011) due to the improved plot and the improved supporting cast. It’s always nice to see a sequel outperform the original, considering it’s usually the other way round.
Two for the price of one, with both Dwayne Johnson (The Rock) and Jason Statham in co-lead roles, as ‘Hobbs’ and ‘Shaw’, continuing their characters from the Fast & Furious movies.
Plenty of high budget fast action scenes including epic car chases, inline with the rest of the Fast & Furious movie series, of which this is a kind of spin-off since Vin Diesel and The Rock didn’t want to work with each other any more.
Idris Elba makes a convincing antagonist too.
Ryan Reynolds has a funny supporting role – this is where he belongs – not in the lead role of an action hero movie. Great supporting role by Kevin Hart too – top level banter there.
Terrible choice of sleazy bratty pop music throughout – kind of ruins the vibe and is a missed opportunity, reminiscent of Black Panther from the year before.
Deadly virus themed plot – no surprise since it’s released in 2019 – it’s even called ‘CV17’ aka ‘the snowflake’ which ‘targets the weakest of us’. Ring any bells?
Dirty theme aside, there’s odd bit of good light humour throughout. But the comedy only works because the mood is otherwise nonchalant – for all the expensive action scenes, it’s not got the cool & comforting mood of something like Bloodsport – the plot is a bit soul-less and the action is intermittently noisy and unemotive, between exciting patches – just as you’d expect from any recent Fast & Furious movie. This is a classic example of how more money and big action movie stars doesn’t necessarily equal action scenes that click – top talent is still needed to put things together behind the scenes. The genre seems to be having an identity crisis – the action here isn’t nearly as slick and clicking as in The Transporter, and it isn’t nearly so funny as The Rundown. It’s got all the meat & bones of a mega classic, but lacks the warm blood running through it, as is often the case when too many superstars come together in one movie – the crew tend to get complacent and the movie ends up stinking (à la Ocean’s Eleven). Ironic, considering The Rock’s speech near the end of this movie, about having heart, to overcome machines.
The mood lifts about two thirds of the way in though, when the team head to Samoa to seek refuge among The Rock’s extended warrior family members. But the cast members playing his relatives aren’t impressive – another missed opportunity.
The lead female is played by Vanessa Kirby but she’s more like one of the lads. Eye candy instead comes courtesy of Eiza González (of Bloodshot (2020) starring Vin Diesel), but she only gets a few minutes of screen time. Major mix up there, and another missed opportunity.
Flaws aside, the stars and budget still carry this movie through to being decent. It’s not a bad movie at all. It’s just way off what it could have been, considering the levels each star has reached alone in other action movies.
The One is a pretty cool Jet Li classic. It’s a simple but pleasant sci-fi packed with kung fu by Jet Li. There’s some energetic solo demonstrations of Xing Yi and Ba Gua to enjoy, plus the usual fast-paced choreography.
The main hero and the main villain are both played by Jet Li (they came from different universes). The villain is trying to kill the good guy in order to gain his power. He’s already killed 123 other versions, making the remaining 2 versions of Jet Li very powerful as they’ve automatically absorbed the speed & strength of those who died (power is split between survivors). The bad guy is trying to kill the good guy now, to become the last remaining one, at which point the universe could explode or the remaining one could “become a god” they say.
Jason Statham has a significant supporting role, as does Delroy Lindo (who was also in Jet Li’s movie from the previous year – Romeo Must Die). They play a pair of inter-universal cops here, tasked with keep both versions of Jet Li alive, to prevent The One from being, at all costs.
The Transporter (2002) basically tells the story of a man who is a very good driver and gets hired to confidentially drive packages around. He conducts himself with great precision and pretty much always gets the job done, in style.
Jason Statham has been involved in a lot of good action movies in recent decades, and this is easily one of his best movies – probably his very best movie ever. This is where he really made his name in the big time – prior to this movie he only had supporting roles such as those in The One (2001) with Jet Li, and a couple of movies with Vinnie Jones. The Transporter was such a hit, it had multiple sequels, each one being not quite as good as the one before (as is usually the case with sequels). Owing to his on screen charisma and martial arts ability, Statham went on to secure the lead role in many other decent action movies (especially after he proved himself yet again in Transporter 2), and has since teamed up with many other stars too (including being a key figure in all of The Expendables movies, and joining the Fast & Furious movie saga from number 6 with a minor appearance and number 7 as a core cast member).
Shu Qi (of Gorgeous (1999) and Chinese Zodiac (2012) with Jackie Chan) does well as the lead female, especially early on – the chemistry between her and Statham is believable.
François Berléand puts in an outstanding performance as the senior police investigator who is cordially acquainted with The Transporter – very much respecting him, while also investigating him.
The Transporter is a fast paced action flick with good budget and just the right amount of downtime for the likes of romance and banter, at least in the beginning and middle. The action scene at the end is overly drawn out and in dire need of additional plot to continue the level of quality that the movie began with – this makes it a bit boring and very skippable for frequent rewatchers. Still, for the most part, it’s a masterpiece of a movie, if a bit one dimensional near the end. It could probably have edged into a 9/10 rating if it were more serious about the plot in places, especially towards the end, and had stronger villain characters – the main villain here isn’t a terrible actor, or is he uncharismatic, he just seems to be the wrong genre for this movie. He’d have been better placed as a sidekick to Joker in a Batman movie. So all in all, I give The Transporter a well deserved 8.5 and concede it may be even better for first time viewers. Well worth watching and rewatching every few years.
Sequels
There are several sequels to The Transporter. Enjoy the whole series sequentially, or just watch the first 2 or 3. Jason wasn’t interested in the 4th so another actor took that role, but rumour says Jason is coming back for the 5th in 2025.
Action Hero Movies
