Transporter
2 (2005)
action thriller
directed
by : Louis Leterner
featuring
: Jason Statham - Alessandro Gassonan - Amber Valletta - Kate Nauta - Matthew
Modine
running
time : 1 hour 28 minutes
Driver and muscle for hire Frank Martin
returns in this sequel to the 2002 box-office hit. Frank Martin (Jason
Statham) is a former special-forces officer who will transport anything
anywhere for a price, and his latest assignment is acting as chauffeur
for Jack Billings (Hunter Clary), the young son of politician Jefferson
Billings (Matthew Modine), who has garnered no small amount of controversy
for his aggressive efforts to stamp out the trade in illegal drugs. One
day, Frank is to take Jack to the doctor for a checkup while his mother,
Audrey (Amber Valletta), sets up a birthday party for the tyke. However,
Jack's doctor is not who he appears to be -- he's actually Dimitri (Jason
Flemyng), a Russian agent well versed in viruses who works with criminal
kingpin Gianni (Alessandro Gassman). After a long and hard-fought chase
with Frank, the bad guys get ahold of little Jack and hold him for ransom.
The parents comply with their monetary demands and soon have their son
back at home -- but little do they know that the boy has secretly been
injected with a deadly and easily spread virus, which the terrorists hope
to spread to the boy's powerful father and other politicians whom Jefferson
will soon be addressing at a public event. When Frank learns what has happened
to young Jack, he sets out to find the culprits -- and the antidote that
will save the boy and all others who have been exposed to the virus from
dying a painful death -- though his foes have stacked the deck so that
it looks as if Frank has been complicit in the crime.
Jason Statham scores another one
for the world of outrageous, high-action cinema with the five-fisted blow
to action lover's temples everywhere, Transporter 2. Ramping up the absurdity,
the sequel pushes the envelope a bit more than the original, but ends up
ratcheting up the fun factor in the process. There's still a juicy villain
and plenty of scenes with "The Transporter" fighting crowds of guys with
everything in sight (the best being the fire hose scene), but this sequel
isn't happy until it kicks it into ludicrous gears as feats of wacky stunts
race across the screen in various degrees of implausibility. Writer/producer
Luc Besson continues his streak of satisfying mid-budget fight flicks,
only this time, his Euro sensibilities are applied to bright and sunny
Miami. The change in setting helps the sequel escape any kind of rehash
and adds to the mouth-watering mix with jet skis and close-quartered fighting
on a speedboat. By the time the wild CG inches its way to the end, you're
either eating it up with a wooden spoon or stuck focusing on all the things
you could have done other than watching this caffeinated fluff. Either
way, you're in for a wild case of deadly serums, smooth suits, and a nasty
Cuban villain with bad teeth -- and that, in a nutshell, is Transporter
2.