Transporter 3 (2008)

User Rating:

5.9/10   

Director:

Olivier Megaton

Writers (WGA):

Luc Besson (written by) &
Robert Mark Kamen (written by) ...

Release Date:

26 November 2008 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Adventure | Crime | Thriller

Tagline:

This time, the rules are the same. Except one.

Plot:

Frank Martin puts the driving gloves on to deliver Valentina, the kidnapped daughter of a Ukranian government official, from Marseilles to Odessa on the Black Sea. En route, he has to contend with thugs who want to intercept Valentina's safe delivery and not let his personal feelings get in the way of his dangerous objective.

Plot Keywords:

Shot In The Forehead | Wig | Disobey | Police Inspector | Decline Job Offer

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

Jason Statham	...	Frank Martin
Natalya Rudakova	...	Valentina
François Berléand	...	Inspector Tarconi
Robert Knepper	...	Johnson
Jeroen Krabbé	...	Leonid Vasilev
Alex Kobold	...	Leonid's Aide
David Atrakchi	...	Malcom Manville
Yann Sundberg	...	Flag
Eriq Ebouaney	...	Ice
David Kammenos	...	Driver Market
Silvio Simac	...	Mighty Joe
Oscar Relier	...	Thug / Driver
Timo Dierkes	...	Otto
Igor Koumpan	...	Cop Ukraine
Paul Barrett	...	Captain

Also Known As:

Le transporteur 3 (France)
El transportador 3 (Argentina) (Peru) [es]
A szállító (Hungary) [hu]
Carga Explosiva 3 (Brazil) [pt]
Kurýr 3 (Czech Republic) [cs]
Riskikuller 3 (Estonia) [et]
Tasiyici 3 (Turkey: Turkish title) [tr]
Transporter - Correio de Risco 3 (Portugal) [pt]
Transporter 3 (Greece) [el]
Transporter 3: Unlimited (Japan: English title) [en]
Wanming kuaidi 3 (China: Mandarin title) [zh]

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for sequences of intense action and violence, some sexual content and drug material.

Runtime:

104 min

Country:

France | UK

Language:

English | French | Ukrainian | Russian | Hungarian

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby Digital | SDDS

Certification:

USA:PG-13 (certificate #44805) | UK:15 | Ireland:15A | France:U | India:UA (cinema release) | Malaysia:18SG | Norway:15 | Singapore:PG | Switzerland:12 (canton of Geneva) | Switzerland:12 (canton of Vaud) | Czech Republic:12 | South Korea:15 | Portugal:M/12 | Philippines:PG-13 (MTRCB) | Germany:12 | Australia:M | Spain:18 | Taiwan:R-12 | Netherlands:12 | South Africa:13V | New Zealand:M | Finland:K-13 | Argentina:13 | Mexico:B15 | Brazil:16 (DVD rating)

Filming Locations:

Budapest, Hungary

Company:

Europa Corp.

Trivia:

Robert Knepper was inspired by Ernest Hemingway to create his character's look, and even created a whole back-story for himself. Thus he imagined Johnson to have grown up in a typical small American town, to have graduated from a prestigious university such as Yale or Harvard, to be highly cultured and sophisticated and to truly believe that he was doing the right thing for his country and the world. In addition Olivier Megaton asked Knepper to draw inspiration from Kiefer Sutherland's performance in Phone Booth (2002).

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: Some of the German license plates do not have the correct German license plate font type.

Quotes:

Johnson: [Valentina sees Frank's car racing alongside the train and smiles] What's so funny?
Valentina: Hearing a dead man talking.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Hierarchy (2009)

Soundtrack:

Trans Boulogne Express

Out of gas.

Jason Statham, in the form of Frank Martin, is knocking bad guys around yet again. What is there to say? He's good at it. This movie, however, is not so good and doesn't give the very likable star enough original material to shine and impress. That doesn't mean a good plot, this type of movie doesn't need anything more than just something to move it along. The place where it needs to be original and truly creative is in the action scenes, that's why people will bother to see this movie, after all.

And that's where "Transporter 3" fails and sinks into the mediocre depths that the two films preceding it enjoyably leaped over. Folks, the action is seriously lacking in this movie... there is not one decent car chase and might I remind you this is a film about a 'transporter' and that is very bad news. The one chase scene there is has no decent stunts or spectacular crashes. The second movie in this series had Frank Martin jumping a car from one building to another... here zip. He does jump onto a train, as evident in the trailer, but it looks better in the trailer. Then the two major fight scenes are essentially overly edited repetitions of one another.

The film is tired and seriously lagging. The attempt at a serious plot is also a bad move which the filmmakers are at fault as is a romantic subplot which the first two films either ignored or minimized... here it is actually a driving force, pardon the pun. --- 5/10

BsCDb classification: 13+ -- violence