Frank Martin just can't spend a quiet evening at home. In Transporter 3, he's ready to relax when a speeding car improbably crashes through the brick wall of his living room, depositing an associate about to die and a mysterious young Ukrainian woman, Valentina. Computer-generated fireballs will follow, along with software-produced car chases and titanic feats of martial arts simulated through quick-cut editing.
Valentina becomes his responsibility on a car trip across Europe from his home in Marseilles to her home in Odessa. Naturally, his agility in whip-stomping the bad guys arouses her interest. By the time they cross the Ukrainian border, they are falling for each other.
Not that anyone would watch Transporter 3 for its love story. A British commando turned mercenary, Martin (Jason Statham) is a natty junior grade James Bond in service to no one but himself. The freelance hard case specializes in moving people and goods through treacherous minefields of violence, duplicity and depravity. He likes to make his own rules but is forced to take the job hauling Valentina home for reasons that remain unclear for a long while in a movie where logic is suspended along with belief.
The bad guys are Yanks, minions of an evil American corporation involved in moving toxic waste across the porous frontiers of the global economy. They are forcing Ukraine's environment minister to license their dirty deals as a freighter loaded with barrels of radioactive goo sails for Odessa and the mysterious Ukrainian girl rides back to the Black Sea port in Martin's beloved Audi. Did I mention that the villainous Yanks fastened exploding bracelets around Valentina and Martin's wrists, set to detonate if they stray too far from that car?
It's flimsy but occasionally fun in a no consequences, no gravity way. The action innovation in the Transporter series comes down to the resourceful use Martin makes of his customary dark suit, black necktie and white shirt. Stripping in the middle of a fight scene, he uses his GQ threads to thrash his foes within an inch of death-or maybe they are dead by the time he exits the room. Life, death and cinematic continuity matter little in Transporter 3 as long as Martin arrives at his destination with his person and human cargo intact.
