THE TRANSPORTER at HOLLYWOOD TEEN MOVIES

The Transporter opens with a frenzied sequence that will leave you breathless and is one in which Jason Statham (Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch) establishes himself as a new and ultra-cool leading man.

As Frank Martin, Stratham is the transporter, a guy who picks up and delivers packages for a price and without question. He has three hard and fast rules: don’t change the deal, don’t mention names and don’t look inside the package. The “package” that he’s picking up when the film begins is four guys who have just robbed a bank. But when they pile into the car, Frank won’t budge. The deal was for three guys and that’s the number on which he has based his precision planning for the getaway. As the four men go into panic mode, cucumber cool Frank insists on sticking to the plan. One of the guys will have to go. And when he does, so does Frank - taking off on a full-throttle car chase that robs the remaining panic-stricken passengers of any tough guy image they thought they might have had. It’s fast, it’s funny and it sets the pace for the overcharged action to follow.

Frank - an ex-Special Forces Operator - has settled in France where he lives in a seaside Mediterranean villa. A local cop, Tarconi (Francois Berleand) is suspicious of what he does and has a pretty good idea what it may be, but seems to have a reasonably amiable relationship with him. During Frank’s next job, he breaks his own rule by looking into the package when he notices that it is moving. Inside is Lai (Qi Shu), a young woman with whom he becomes even more careless when he nearly lets her escape. He recaptures her, but is confronted by two suspicious cops whom he knocks out in a quick scuffle. (The fight scenes almost inevitably have him pitted against more than one adversary and coming off best in some spectacular fist and feet-flying displays.) Frank delivers Lai to an oily customer known as Wall Street (Matt Schulze) who gives him another package to deliver. It turns out to be a bomb. When it explodes, Frank is not in the car, but the two unconscious cops are in the boot.

This triggers another kind of explosion, when Frank returns and inflicts some major damage on Wall Street’s men in one of the movie’s highly charged and expertly choreographed action sequences. Frank and Lai, who has hidden in the back seat of his car, escape to his house, but have to go on the run when it is destroyed in a full-scale assault. Lai finally tells Frank what Wall Street and his men are involved in…but he’s not sure he can trust her, especially when he finds out who’s behind it. The action continues to gather momentum as The Transporter takes passengers on a wild, wild ride.

Trivia: Jason Statham is back behind the wheel in his next movie - a remake of the classic car caper, The Italian Job.