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.