A Doubly Thrusty Friday Fu Review

So just last week I "discovered" Jason Statham for myself and promptly dedicated Thrusty Thursday to him and his extraordinary foxxitude. Then I asked my Twitter cohorts—who know everything—which of his movies I ought to gorge myself upon first. The unanimous and resounding response was "TRANSPORTER!" And off I scampered to add it to my Netflix queue.

The Transporter ★★★ ½ 

Fun and foxy, if not strictly a
true martial arts flick.

I watched it on Wednesday night with the manfriend and enjoyed it a lot. Strictly speaking, The Transporter (2002) is not a Kung Fu movie, but the scenes that do feature martial arts-style combat are exceptional, so I'm rounding it up. It's fast-paced, well choreographed, and the action sequences are very clever and original. Statham plays the protagonist, a man whose job is to deliver anything to anyone, no questions asked. Matt Schulze plays the lead baddie, who's involved in human trafficking and attempts to blow Statham up, after using his services. Vengeance ensues!

As an aside, I didn't know until he popped up on screen that Matt Schulze was in this film. I owe Schulze more than a few solids, as his Thrusty Thursday post attracts (no exaggeration, I busted out the calculator) nearly twenty percent of all the traffic for this blog. And "Matt Schulze" is the most popular keywording used to find the Super Lucky #1 Fun Blog by light years.

Back to the review. I liked this movie, let me say that right now. But there were a few things that ding it some points. For one, Matt Schulze was issued a haircut that did not best exhibit his foxiness. The dialogue was not nearly as clever as the action. The chemistry between Statham and the female lead was a bit unconvincing, and worse still, we don't get to see anything in the way of NC-17 bedroom shenanigans. However, perverts like me will be vindicated, because later in the movie Statham uses his shirt to incapacitate some baddies and spends a bunch of time fighting topless. Schulze, in my opinion, is a good actor for playing bad guys…he has a Stephen Dorff-esque charisma. However, I think he plays a better asshole than a true villain, and I enjoyed his smaller part in The Fast and the Furious more than this role.

Of course I couldn't post this without sourcing a clip (and a long one, as it turns out) that features Jason Statham fighting Matt Schulze…at least at the start. Then to make up for the lack of Schulze, Statham gets his shirt off and rolls about in a puddle of oil. No, really! Watch and see.