The Transporter (2002)

The Transporter (2002)- * * *1\2

Directed by: Louis Leterrier and Cory Yuen

Starring: Jason Statham, Shu Qi, Francois Berleand, Ric Young, and Matt Schulze

Frank Martin (Statham) is an ex-Special Forces soldier who now lives alone in a picturesque region of France. When his friend Inspector Tarconi (Berleand) makes occasional visits to his fortress-like home, Martin maintains that he’s left the fighting life behind him and now lives on his Army pension alone. The truth is that Martin is a master Martial Artist and expert driver who employs his prodigious skills for whoever pays his price, and whoever agrees to follow his strict set of rules. Things get complicated when a super-evil businessman known only as Wall Street (Schulze) hires Martin – and then Martin realizes that he’s transporting a live human in a bag – a woman named Lai (Qi). Together, Martin and Lai uncover a smuggling ring and a conspiracy that will hit everyone very close to home. Battling many goons to get close to the truth, will Frank Martin be the TRANSPORTER of justice? Find out today!

Top fan favorite Jason Statham in a movie co-written by Luc Besson and co-directed by Corey Yuen? Sign us up! Indeed, The Transporter lives up to the promise inherent in these names – it’s a fast paced, professionally-shot, and totally enjoyable action outing that’s easy to love. The French locations are beautiful and make a nice change of pace for the setting for an action movie, and the car chase and driving scenes are all the better for occurring in these locales. This was the first feature film for co-director Leterrier, and he and Yuen show they know how to deliver the action goods. Between the car action, the gun-shooting, missile-shooting, and Hong Kong-style Martial Arts, the movie breezes by in a blur of entertaining goodness.

It’s easy to see why this garnered two more sequels and a TV spin-off – it’s a simple, enjoyable premise and the end result lives up to, and exceeds, audience expectations. While we wouldn’t necessarily recommend the sequels, especially the second installment, what we would recommend is the Japanese DVD, if you can find it. It’s an uncut version that contains more violence than other DVD issues to date. However, it’s certainly not mandatory you find that in order to fully enjoy The Transporter – from action newbies to die-hard fans, it delivers the goods and surely a great time will be had by all who see it. 

Featuring a notable score by Stanley Clarke, and action scenes galore (the garage oil slick scene is a particular highlight), The Transporter is a gem. 

Comeuppance Review by: Ty and Brett 

The Expendables 2 (2012)

The Expendables 2 (2012)-* * *1\2

Directed by: Simon West

Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Bruce Willis, Chuck Norris Arnold Schwarznegger, Dolph Lundgren, Terry Crews, Jet Li, Liam Hemsworth, Charisma Carpenter, Randy Couture, Nan Yu, ALSO Jean-Claude Van Damme, and Scott Adkins



 "Let's wrap this up" - Vilain







 Barney Ross, Toll Road, Hale Caesar, Gunner, Lee Christmas, Yin Yang and of course TRENCH are back for another round of explosively awesome, over-the-top entertainment you just have to love. This time around, The Expendables are sent into Eastern Europe to get information leading to tons of  Cold War-era plutonium. The last thing they want is for this to get into the wrong hands. Towards that end, they recruit a young new Expendable, Billy the Kid (Hemsworth), a youthful veteran of the war in Afghanistan. As if the team wasn’t powerful enough, when Church (Willis) assigned this mission to them, he also sent along the highly competent Maggie (Nan). But things get complicated when they run into super-evil baddie Vilain (JCVD) and his equally nefarious sidekick Hector (Adkins). 

These two jerks are forcing an entire town to work in their plutonium mines. Without giving away any spoilers, let’s just say something happens that causes The Expendables to want REVENGE! And these are some dudes (and Maggie) that you DO NOT want on your bad side. Expendables away!

We were overjoyed to see the triumphant return of The Expendables. Thankfully, it was done right, which is rare for a sequel - but perhaps this isn’t any ordinary sequel. The writers stuck to the formulas that worked from the first film - what we would call “vehicles and oldies” (i.e. motorcycles, planes, trucks, etc. and songs such as Rare Earth’s “I Just Want To Celebrate” and The Rascals’ “It’s A Beautiful Morning”, among others) - but they smartly didn’t just rest there and they made new improvements such as a young Expendable and a female Expendable. Plus, to the delight of the audience, everything is just BIGGER. Bigger guns, bigger explosions, bigger action setpieces, and a massive body count.  Plus we get more Trench and Church than ever before. So it would be like a master pastry chef making one of his classic cakes, but adding more frosting. You can’t hope for better in a sequel.

While most missions into hostile territory shun violence unless it is absolutely necessary, what’s so great about The Expendables is that they execute their missions with the maximum amount of violence. Just look at the opening raid (which both films have - but this new one is better. For example, their truck says “Bad Attitude” and “Shock and Awe” on it. So there). But this amount of ultra-violence would be a lot tougher to take if the film didn’t have a healthy dose of humor. 

We said everything is bigger this time, and that includes the laughs. There are a lot of truly funny moments, and the men involved even mock themselves at certain points. It looked like everyone involved was having fun, and that sense is extremely infectious and winning. Van Damme surely relished being the baddie, which he rarely portrays. He was perfectly cast as the arrogant Eurotrash guy. And seeing Stallone and JCVD fight - on the big screen no less - was a treat. 

Most action movies have one good one-liner, if you’re lucky. The Expendables 2 is chock full of them. And Stallone continues his streak of giving his characters great names - the “kid” in the movie is “Billy the Kid” and again without subtlety, the villain is named Vilain. As far as Nan Yu’s character, Maggie, we think Stallone might have gotten her confused with Maggie Q. Or possibly Maggie Cheung.

Of course, the whole thing is a complete adolescent male fantasy blown up on the big screen.  But that’s the genius of The Expendables. It taps into the male brain in an extremely effective way. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. As an added bonus, the take-away message of the movie is that “Violence DOES solve problems”. 

Which happens to be true, but is considered politically incorrect in today’s wimpy climate. So the movie has guts, brains and heart, and has plenty of “YES!” moments to boot. And the fact that The Expendables are getting REVENGE just sweetens the deal even more. Now that we’ve given the movie its due props, we have to mention two minor quibbles. The usage of CGI during some of the bullet hits makes it look like a video game at times, and some of the in-jokey humor goes too close to the irony edge for our liking. 

But it’s all in good fun, and, taken as a whole, those small grievances pale into nothing. If the movie didn’t deliver, those complaints would have more merit, but it does deliver, so, we’re more than willing to let them go.

It pretty much goes without saying at this point, but we LOVED The Expendables 2. We applaud everyone involved for doing 99% of everything right, and unquestionably delivering the goods that fans want. It’s a proud moment for the cast, for the crew, and for America. Long live The Expendables!

Also check out reviews from our buddies The Video Vaccum, Explosive Action, and Freddie Young.

Comeuppance Review by: Ty and Brett

The Expendables (2010)

The Expendables (2010)-* * *1\2

Directed by: Sylvester Stallone

Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Mickey Rourke, Terry Crews, Randy Couture, Eric Roberts, Jet Li, Steve Austin, Gary Daniels, Giselle Itié, Dolph Lundgren, David Zayas, Jason Statham, Bruce Willis, and Arnold Schwarzenegger














The Expendables is the most macho movie ever made. From the metallic-looking credits on down, the screen pretty much oozes testosterone.

Barney Ross, Lee Christmas, Yin Yang, Toll Road, Hale Caesar, and Gunner Jensen (Stallone, Statham, Li, Couture, Crews, and Lundgren respectively) are an underground A-Team of sorts who go all over the world doing the hard jobs that no other teams of mercenaries will do. When it is discovered that evil South American dictator General Garza (Zayas) is a puppet for rogue CIA agent James Munroe (Roberts), the team are sent in to clean up the mess (i.e. create a bigger mess by creating countless deaths and explosions) by a mysterious man named Mr. Church (Willis).

When Barney falls in love with the dictator's daughter Sandra (Giselle Itié) and she is kidnapped by the Munroe's goons The Brit (Daniels) and the very imposing Dan Paine (Austin)... get ready to party like it's 1986 as The Expendables hearkens back to the glory days of action cinema. Even Stallone's vehicles (car and plane) are reminiscent of the classic Cobra (1986), as are Garza's soldiers. 

Roberts plays the slimy Munroe with aplomb. He gets the classic final villain speech we all want to hear. Let's not forget our favorite governor Arnold: He is basically the comic relief with his jokey cameo and prerequisite funny name (Trench). It would have been fun to see Willis character to return one more time to angrily bellow "This wasn't part of the deal!" or some line like that but sadly, that is not to be.

We're so used to seeing these faces on the small screen, it was a real treat to see them in the theater. They truly deserve it. Eric Roberts, Dolph Lundgren and Gary Daniels in the same scene? Oh yeah! We also get to see a one-on-one fight between Dolph and Jet Li for the first time ever. And Gary Daniels vs. Jet Li and Statham. In the theater!



The pairings of all the different fan-favorites is pretty mind-boggling. Of course, with an international cast such as this it becomes hard to understand what some of them are saying - when Stallone and Li talk it's hard to understand, and when Couture talks you don't want to understand. But to counteract his Dale "Apollo" Cook-style delivery, we have Mickey Rourke on hand as the token "good actor" who gets a heartfelt monologue. For a movie with so many characters, it was very well done how each got a nice backstory and it never got confusing at all.




God bless Stallone - he couldn't have delivered this at a better time. What the world needs now is more tough, take-no-prisoners action. Not more sissy junk involving "facebook". This movie is the antidote to "Eat Pray Love". To quote The Simpsons, this is more like "Beat Slay Shove". Another good thing about the movie is it has no stupid kids or teenagers. 

When Jason Statham is the YOUNGEST person in the group, we get mature, professional action. Stallone is known for giving his characters funny names and here he really goes to town. You thought Driven's Joe "The Hummer" Tanto was funny...He also includes another of his trademarks - ripped from the headlines topicality. Like the plot of Rambo III (1988) involving Afghanistan, here we have Somali pirates and a clear analogue to crimson-shirted cretin Hugo Chavez.



If there is a downside to The Expendables, it is the use of CGI. CGI sucks and it takes away from the old-school feel we love. It's not entirely dependent on it, but when it was there, we felt it was unwelcome.

Back in the golden age, any one of the cast members could have sold a movie. It is a sad comment on movies today that it took a ton of producers and EVERY major action star just to get the project off the ground. How can they top this if they want to do it again?

It has all the clichés we know and love, just on a bigger scale. Abandoned warehouses, neck-snapping the villains, the line "we've got company", exploding guard towers and many, many more. The first 20 lines said by our heroes (and throughout the film) are fun clichés and soundbites. This isn't a complaint. Perhaps a certain appreciation for action movies is needed to truly understand what's going on here. Anyone who trashes this movie simply doesn't get action movies or their significance. They should go back to poking Twi-hards on facebook, or some such moronic twaddle.




Truly a movie for the fans, The Expendables delivers the goods with a once-in-a-lifetime cast. See it!

Comeuppance Review by: Brett and Ty

Chaos (2005)

Chaos (2005) -* * *

Directed By: Tony Giglio

Starring: Jason Statham, Ryan Phillippe, Henry Czerny, and Wesley Snipes











Chaos is an entertaining, but cliched thriller.

Quentin Conners (Statham) is a cop who gets fired after a hostage situation goes bad. He gets reinstated with a new partner (Phillippe) after a bank robber named Lorenz (Snipes) takes over downtown. But something about the robbery isn't right when none of the money is taken...can Connors and his partner figure out the truth?



This movie was made before Inside Man (2006) but it was on the shelf for 3 years. I guess it's hard to market after the success of that movie. It does have its similarities, but overall the movie is different. Statham, Phillippe, and Snipes all put in good performances. Henry Czerny has the usual underwritten role as the Chief.

The movie does have some good action in the middle with a well-shot motorcycle chase and gunfight between Lorenz and Conners. The last interrogation scene with Phillippe is full of fun overacting. The climax\ending is VERY similar to Inside Man which almost ruins the movie.

Hopefully Chaos will get a release because it shouldn't stay on the shelf forever.





Comeuppance Review by: Ty

Crank (2006)

Crank (2006) -* * *1\2
 
Directed By: Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor

Starring: Jason Statham, Amy Smart, and Dwight Yoakam











Now this is an action movie! Crank is 85 minutes of non-stop action and excitement.


Chev Chelios (Statham) is a hitman who is injected with "The Beijing Cocktail" by his enemy Verona (Jose Pablo Cantillo). Chev has only an hour to live unless he keeps his adrenaline up. That means he does anything and everything to survive, which includes snorting coke, getting defibrillated and much more. He also has to settle the score with Verona. He kills anybody on his path to revenge.

The movie starts out awesome, with the Quiet Riot song "Metal Health" blasting in the opening. Jason Statham personifies cool with this role. You feel for him and his situation. Amy Smart plays his girlfriend Eve and they have a sex scene that's very funny and original. Dwight Yoakam plays Chev's shady friend Dr. Miles. He's very good. Cantillo is entertaining as the villain. The editing and directing are perfect and the movie is beyond fast-paced. The helicopter fight, The car chase, and the arm-cutting scene are the stand-outs. Crank is a blast!

Comeuppance Review by: Ty