The Transporter Refueled

Director: Camille Delamarre
Writers: Adam Cooper, Bill Collage
Stars: Ed Skrein, Loan Chabanol, Ray Stevenson
Strengths: Action sequences, stunts
Weakness: Story, Acting
Runtime: 96 minutes
Rating: 2.5/5

Plot: In the south of France, former special-ops mercenary Frank Martin enters into a game of chess with a femme-fatale and her three sidekicks who are looking for revenge against a sinister Russian kingpin.

Review: The film opens with Frank about to spend some time with his recently retired father when he is hired by the beautiful Anna to pick her and a couple of packages up outside of a bank. The "packages" turn out to be her equally glam cohorts and they have just robbed a Russian gangster. It turns out that the three, along with Maria are trying to break free from the crime kingpin who has enslaved them since they were children, by stealing his ill-gotten gains. To do this, they need Frank's help and to ensure his compliance, they take his old man hostage. 

Arriving seven years after the final installment of the trilogy originally starring Jason Statham, this latest version features a younger, slighter Frank Martin as played by Ed Skrein. While Ed has the requisite good looks, rumbling voice that make him machismo personified, but compared to his predecessor, he's seriously lacking in charisma, and his relentlessly monotonous performance fails to generate interest.

Director Camille Delamarre have devised a few nifty sequences, including a Jackie Chan-style fight scene in which Frank uses an array of file cabinet drawers to dispatch his opponents, and a car's flying leap into an airport terminal through which it proceeds to wreak vehicular havoc. But unlike the similarly high-octane stunts in Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation, most of the ones rendered here are cartoonish and divorced from reality.

The Transporter series was never really known for its strong plot anyway. What made the franchise famous was Jason Statham, and omitting that secret ingredient from the recipe is just uncalled for, so it's hardly a surprise that this movie doesn't have the gusto to make any impact whatsoever. Like the movie's famous line when entering the car, Fasten your seatbelt as this movie is one heck of a bumpy ride.

Reviewed by Intisab Shahriyar