The Transporter Refueled - almost a good movie!
So the movie begins in 1995 on the French Riviera in the redlight district. Some Russians pull up and shoot all the black dude pimps except for one who is told to send a message that the Russians are in control now. We meet Anna who is on the verge of tears and clearly being forced to be a prostitute. The asshole Russian guy tells her to smile or else. One of the prostitutes that had already been there, Maïssa played with power by Noémie Lenoir, takes a chance and hops in the car with the Russian (Arkady) to make her fortune.
~fifteen years later~ (so like 2010 which makes no fucking sense given the tech on Frank's car but whatever)
Then we go to Frank Martin, the titular star of this movie. He walks into a parking garage where a bunch of brown boy 'thugs' attempt to make him give them his car. He beats the shit out of them and then whines that they've made him late. Look, this movie was fighting an uphill battle recasting from Jason Statham, but this dude is...a zero and UGLY.
Anyway, he zoom zooms across town to pick up his passenger. But he's late and his passenger, his father Frank Sr as it turns out played by the delightfully charming Ray Stevenson, gives him shit the whole way home.
At this point I'm gonna start summarizing because I am NOT writing out this whole movie. Okay I probably will.
Anna has decided she's going to escape being trafficked. She is working with three other women, also forced sex workers, to not just escape slavery but to tear the organization apart. Their plan is actually really fucking good.
They hire Frank jr to drive them from their first robbery (stealing the funds from a Russian dude they just killed) back to their secret base. For insurance they kidnap Frank Sr. I don't blame them. They more than anyone would know how little trust a woman can place in a man. They then tell Jr that they've poisoned Sr (who as it turns out is a former british spy) and Jr has to help them or Sr dies. So he resentfully does.
They go and rob a couple more Russians, each time wearing identical outfits and blonde wigs. Only three of them go to each robbery while the fourth woman works behind the scenes. This throws the Russians off.
Frank Sr is charming as fuck and flirty. I loathe men that hit on women young enough to be their children. But somehow, Ray Stevenson remained charming. He happily goes along with the women's plan to fuck over the Russians. Going so far as to take part in one of the robberies by dressing up as a pilot.
Now at this point in the theatre, let me tell you, I was feeling this strange and wondrous hope that this movie was somehow going to be somewhere in the realm of Mad Max Fury Road awesome. Because the women are the plot. They are the primary actors, this is their story, they are leading all the action. The men are either villains or useful tools. And that is AWESOME.
So I'm getting this ridiculous feeling of hope, and I'm trying to temper it because boy do I know better.
Tragically I was right to temper expectation.
In a 'quiet moment' one night, the women and the franks all have sex. I mean, two of them sleep with Frank sr and Anna goes for Frank jr.
Sex trafficked women. Having a lighthearted romp with two men they've been blackmailing as they attempt to free themselves from slavery. OK.
Things happen, and the final showdown between Anna and her crew (plus the Franks) vs the Russians comes to pass. Again, the plan that Anna and her crew have worked up is actually really, really fucking good. Smart, effective, etc.
And then the movie blinks.
Gina, Maria and Qiao die with only Anna surviving. She tearfully threatens Jr, but he talks her down or something -- I was rolling my eyes pretty hard at this point.
She leaves, Frank and his dad go back to their lives. Anna is next seen at some lovely resort putting money (the Russian's money) into the accounts of the families of her crew. She's smiling, happy and free.
IT WAS SO CLOSE!
*sigh*
If only at least one of the other women survived (really they didn't think to put body armor under their dresses?!). Or if Maïssa, who had in that same 15 years managed to basically become Arkady's full time concubine and nearly an equal, had either been in on Anna's plan or maybe taken the reins of the whole operation from Arkady. I honestly thought the latter might be true given the way she spoke and acted in her scenes with Arkady. She had genuine agency. Either of those tweaks would have improved the movie IMMENSELY.
Also, Ed Skrein is ugly and uncharismatic and not remotely charming and for some fucking reason his Frank was always fucking late! I mean what the actual fuck? That's like, the opposite of what he's supposed to be good for!
Frank jr SHOULD have been played by someone like Katie McGrath and then Frank sr still could have been played by Ray Stevenson and the plot would remain mostly unchanged.
NO SEX WITH SEX TRAFFICKED VICTIMS!! omfg
ALL four women survive! And Maïssa be either in on it with Anna or in control of the Russian crime org. One or the other. Not just a sexpot.
And voila, suddenly the movie is perfection.
Basically, the first three transporter movies were HORRID when it came to their treatment of women. SO FUCKING PATRONIZING AND SEXIST. So in some respects, this movie totally topped the other three. Until you know, the sex and the killing.
This movie made me want to write fixit fic. And I may still. Because those women deserved a better ending and more fully developed characterization.
In the end this movie tried to straddle the fence between sexist action movie and self-aware feminist film. And by half-assing both sides, it failed to please either the sexist men who the marketing appealed to and failed to draw in the Fury Road crowd that is so hungry for films where women are not things.
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