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Features
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Statham's Surprising Sequel
From Donnie Darko to The Iron Giant, DVD has the power to re-invigorate celluloid. Now, you can add to that group Jason S tatham’s kinetic action franchise.
Thursday, September 1, 2005
By Brett Buckalew
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Steve Granitz/Wireimage.com
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Also being bandied about as Bond
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Onetime Terminator behemoth Arnold Schwarzenegger has now thrown his weight into the California political arena. Bruce Willis has lost the youthful vigor of his John McClane days, to the point where serene character turns in the likes of The Sixth Sense well outgross attempts to reclaim his past renegade-cop persona, such as this spring’s Hostage. Steven Seagal’s recent work is now relegated strictly to DVD shelves, arguably where all of his films except Under Siege rightfully belong. And Sylvester Stallone was last seen acting as boxing mentor on the reality TV series The Contender, proving that he’s become more believable outside of the ring than in it.
So moviegoers everywhere have lately been scratching their heads over a burning popcorn-flick question: where have all the action heroes gone? While The Rock is a leading American candidate, people have emphatically voted this summer against candidates like Orlando Bloom and Ewan McGregor, reasonably talented actors whose pretty, delicate features make them ideal for drama and romance but awkward when plunked into the action-movie chaos of Kingdom of Heaven or The Island.
But another performer who is clearly on his way to legitimately assuming the title of dependable big-screen tough guy for the ‘00s is Jason Statham. After doing dryly funny work in the violence-tinged dark comedies of Guy Ritchie (Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch), the British actor stepped into the crisp black suits of Frank Martin, the taciturn, ex-military courier at the center of The Transporter, an actioner produced and co-written by French thriller whiz Luc Besson (The Professional, La Femme Nikita).
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Jim Spellman/Wireimage.com
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Director Louis Leterrier
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The Transporter made only a little over $25 million when it was released theatrically in the US three years ago, but it became such a cult hit on DVD that a sequel has been made. And with Transporter 2, opening this weekend, Statham’s action star status is bound to be cemented by eager ticket buyers. Here’s a guy with a granite jaw, a buff physique, and impressive martial arts experience under his belt; it’s tempting to look at him as Arnold meets Jackie Chan.
When asked during a recent interview with FilmStew about being regarded as contemporary film’s newest action hero, Statham laughs. “Uh, nothing wrong with it,” he admits. “It’s a funny title to wear actually, but I suppose as soon as you start doing [action] stuff, and doing your own stunts, people kind of consider you the action hero.”
“But it’s not like a label I’m trying to build,” adds the rugged London native, who turns 33 later this month. “I’m trying to mix things up and do other movies as well. You know, I just did one for Guy Ritchie [Revolver, which premieres at this month’s Toronto Film Festival] that is certainly the opposite of what this is. And I just did a little independent movie at the beginning of the year that’s just a complete drama. So I’m doing stuff that keeps me interested as much as doing the action stuff that people enjoy too.”
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Steve Granitz/Wireimage.com
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Zen action master Besson
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Attesting to the depth and range of Statham’s work is Transporter 2 director Louis Leterrier, previously credited as ‘artistic director’ on the first Transporter and last behind the camera of the Besson-produced, Jet Li-starring Unleashed. “Without Jason Statham, this movie would be a straight-to-video, dumb-ass, horrible film,” Leterrier frankly asserts.
Describing what makes Statham so ideal for the role of Frank Martin, Leterrier adds, “He brought so much humanity to the character, and that’s what I wanted. I’m pushing him towards humanity, towards the broken action hero. He’s not Jean Claude Van Damme, he’s not Bruce Willis.”
According to Statham, one of the most fascinating human traits within the character of Frank, as conceived by Besson and co-writer Robert Mark Kamen, is his insistence on incapacitating enemies with elaborate kung-fu moves (choreographed by master in his field Cory Yuen) rather than killing them. As a no-nonsense mover of goods, Frank means to avoid the presence of death that surrounded his former stint as a Special Forces operative.
“He doesn’t walk around with a gun and start killing people,” Statham observes of Frank. “It’s not what he does. It’s not his chosen weapon. If he can sustain somebody’s life, then that’s a great thing for him. He’s not like this vicious person that’s out to kill people. He wants to save as many people as he can. But if someone on the sidelines happens to die as a consequence, that’s not something he can help.”
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Steve Granitz/Wireimage.com
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Co-star Amber Valletta
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All this talk of Frank’s pacifism shouldn’t scare action-movie fans away from Transporter 2 though. The sequel’s story starts off in a deceptively placid way, with Frank relocating from the French Mediterranean to Miami, Florida to take the seemingly mundane job of driver for Jack Billings (Hunter Clary), the six-year-old son of a drug czar (Matthew Modine) and his wife (Amber Valletta). But when Jack is kidnapped by villains hoping to get to his powerful politician father, Frank’s hunt for the boy results in one astonishing set piece after another.
Leterrier and Statham had originally wanted all the onscreen carnage to be tough and hard-hitting in an R-rated way, but American distributor Twentieth Century Fox fought for a PG-13 - the rating the first Transporter carried - which is a decision Leterrier now respects.
“It was shot R, this movie, because Jason wanted a tougher movie, and he told Luc, and Luc said, ‘Okay, I’ll do it,’” the director recalls. “And Fox, from the beginning, they said, ‘It would be better to make it a PG-13.’ And they were right, because the humor in it, the stuff that’s not plausible, [make] it more like a teenager’s movie.”
Defending his original stance on aiming for an R-rated level of action, Statham states, “I think if violence is gonna be depicted in a film, then just show it how it should be. But there are some times that it doesn’t necessarily translate to a movie like The Transporter, because the tone of the movie’s not like, say, something that Martin Scorsese would do with Casino, when he puts a guy’s head in a vice.”
“ We’re not trying to create gratuitous violence, but if there’s gonna be some violence, then I would like to see it followed through fully.”
However, much like Leterrier, Statham was eventually won over by Fox’s argument that an R rating would alienate many viewers who could potentially be some of the movie’s biggest fans.
“It’s a shame to eliminate the kids from coming to see it, because there’s some great, fun stuff within it too that’s not to be taken seriously,” the actor concedes, “like some great car chases and an amazing chase on a jet ski. So just to keep in those realistic, harsh moments, it would be a shame to do that. And I came around to that thought eventually.”
| That’s not to say that we’ll never see a darker, more graphic Frank Martin adventure down the line. Leterrier, who openly admits to fumbling a dragging scene of pre-climactic exposition in the first Transporter. “I’m sorry I made you waste ten minutes of your life on that,” he sheepishly apologizes, more intrigued now by the many possibilities of where to take Frank from here if Transporter 2 is warmly received by audiences.
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“If it’s successful, people will say, ‘Well, we want some more,’ and then we’ll keep on making them,” the filmmaker promises. “If it’s not successful, maybe they’ll do a TV show. It would be a good idea for a TV show; the transporter every week gets a new package.”
“Or, if it’s a total failure,” Leterrier allows, “bye-bye Transporter.”
Such a dire scenario doesn’t seem likely, but just in case the second Frank Martin installment fizzles, Leterrier has a doozy of an idea for his next project, one he’s currently developing the script for: an action movie done, much like Hitchcock’s Rope, in a continuous single shot, with no cuts.
| Statham says he would love to be considered for the genre experiment, and adds that the concept reminds him of the more restrained editing of action movies past. “For me, the best fights that you’ll ever see are the stuff that Bruce Lee used to do, because it’s always a wider angle,” the performer argues, “so you see the guy doing it. There’s no room for fast cuts. I mean, there’s a lot of movies you see now where you just see fists going, and you don’t know who’s doing it. It could be my grandma!”
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With such a keen sense of action movie framing and cutting, Statham gives the impression that he could one day try his hand at directing. But for now, we need a kick-butt screen icon more than anything, and this chiseled Brit fits the bill perfectly.
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