Transporter 3
Encyclopedia
Transporter 3 is a 2008 French-English action film
Action film
Action film is a film genre where one or more heroes is thrust into a series of challenges that require physical feats, extended fights and frenetic chases...

, and is the third installment in the Transporter
The Transporter
The Transporter is a 2002 French action film directed by Louis Leterrier and Corey Yuen and written by Luc Besson, who was inspired by BMW Films' The Hire series....

film series
Film series
A film series is a collection of related films in succession. Their relationship is not fixed, but generally share a common diegetic world. Sometimes the work is conceived as a multiple-film work, for example the Three Colours series, but in most cases the success of the original film inspires...

, as well as the first not to be distributed by 20th Century Fox
20th Century Fox
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios...

 in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. Both Jason Statham
Jason Statham
Jason Statham born 12 September1967) is an English actor and former diver, known for his roles in the Guy Ritchie crime films Revolver, Snatch and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels...

 and François Berléand
François Berléand
François Berléand is a French actor.Berléand was born in Paris, France of . He plays Gilles Triquet, the officer manager and equivalent of David Brent in Le Bureau, the French version of The Office, produced by Canal+. He released a book about his childhood in 2006, Le fils de l'homme invisible...

 reprised their roles, as Frank Martin
Frank Martin (character)
The Transporter is a French film series, comprising three films released between 2002 and 2008. The protagonist and reluctant hero is Frank Martin, portrayed by Jason Statham. Martin is portrayed as a professional freelance courier driver for hire. Statham is himself an accomplished martial artist,...

 and Tarconi, respectively. This is the first film in the series to be directed by Olivier Megaton
Olivier Megaton
Olivier Megaton is a French film director, writer, and editor best known for directing The Red Siren, Transporter 3 and Colombiana.-Early life:...

. The film continues the story of Frank Martin, a professional "transporter" who has returned to France to continue his low-key business of delivering packages without questions.

Plot

A ship at sea is supposedly carrying alcohol. Two crew-members accidentally discover the cargo is actually toxic waste, and are killed. Their bodies are thrown overboard.

Meanwhile, Frank Martin (Jason Statham
Jason Statham
Jason Statham born 12 September1967) is an English actor and former diver, known for his roles in the Guy Ritchie crime films Revolver, Snatch and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels...

) has been pressured into transporting a package, together with Valentina (Natalya Rudakova); Both have a device attached to their wrists which is wired to explode if the person concerned strays more than 75 feet (22.86 metres) away from the car.
It is soon revealed that the objective is to deliver Valentina; She is the daughter of Leonid Vasilev (Jeroen Krabbé
Jeroen Krabbé
Jeroen Aart Krabbé is a Dutch actor and film director who has appeared in many Dutch and international films.-Biography:...

), head of Ukraine's Environmental Protection Agency. Vasilev refused to do business with an environmentally irresponsible company, so they arranged for an employee called Johnson (Robert Knepper
Robert Knepper
Robert Lyle Knepper is an American actor. He is best known for starring as Theodore "T-Bag" Bagwell in the Fox network's drama series Prison Break, for which he was nominated a Satellite Award...

) to kidnap her. Valentina is being used as leverage, to get Vasilev to sign a contract with the organization.

Frank travels from Marseille
Marseille
Marseille , known in antiquity as Massalia , is the second largest city in France, after Paris, with a population of 852,395 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Marseille extends beyond the city limits with a population of over 1,420,000 on an area of...

 through Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...

 and Budapest
Budapest
Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...

 until he ends up in Odessa
Odessa
Odessa or Odesa is the administrative center of the Odessa Oblast located in southern Ukraine. The city is a major seaport located on the northwest shore of the Black Sea and the fourth largest city in Ukraine with a population of 1,029,000 .The predecessor of Odessa, a small Tatar settlement,...

 on the Black Sea
Black Sea
The Black Sea is bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and the Aegean seas and various straits. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects that sea to the Aegean...

. With the help of Inspector Tarconi (François Berléand
François Berléand
François Berléand is a French actor.Berléand was born in Paris, France of . He plays Gilles Triquet, the officer manager and equivalent of David Brent in Le Bureau, the French version of The Office, produced by Canal+. He released a book about his childhood in 2006, Le fils de l'homme invisible...

), Frank contends with the people who strong-armed him into taking the job, agents sent by Ukrainian
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...

 government to intercept him, and the general non-cooperation of his passenger.

Valentina thinks she is going to die, so consumes drugs and alcohol to feel better and have some fun for the last time. Frank is not happy with this, because both have to remain sharp. However, Frank and Valentina fall for each other, while escaping from one life-threatening situation after another.

Eventually Valentina is kidnapped by Johnson, leaving on a passenger train. Martin drives his car off a bridge to land on the moving train, then fights all the thugs inside. Johnson and Valentina end up in a carriage near the front of the train, which is then decoupled from the rest of the carriages. Returning to his car, Martin jumps the widening gap, crashing into the carriage. After a struggle, Martin transfers the explosive device from his wrist to Johnsons, then launches the vehicle from the train. The explosive device kills Johnson.

Tarconi rescues them and calls Vasilev, telling him that his daughter is safe. Vasilev rips up the contract, and the ship from the beginning is raided by the police.
Frank, Tarconi and Valentina are shown fishing in the ocean.

Cast

  • Jason Statham
    Jason Statham
    Jason Statham born 12 September1967) is an English actor and former diver, known for his roles in the Guy Ritchie crime films Revolver, Snatch and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels...

     as Frank Martin
    Frank Martin (character)
    The Transporter is a French film series, comprising three films released between 2002 and 2008. The protagonist and reluctant hero is Frank Martin, portrayed by Jason Statham. Martin is portrayed as a professional freelance courier driver for hire. Statham is himself an accomplished martial artist,...

  • François Berléand
    François Berléand
    François Berléand is a French actor.Berléand was born in Paris, France of . He plays Gilles Triquet, the officer manager and equivalent of David Brent in Le Bureau, the French version of The Office, produced by Canal+. He released a book about his childhood in 2006, Le fils de l'homme invisible...

     as Inspector Tarconi
  • Natalya Rudakova as Valentina Vasilev
  • Robert Knepper
    Robert Knepper
    Robert Lyle Knepper is an American actor. He is best known for starring as Theodore "T-Bag" Bagwell in the Fox network's drama series Prison Break, for which he was nominated a Satellite Award...

     as Johnson
  • Jeroen Krabbé
    Jeroen Krabbé
    Jeroen Aart Krabbé is a Dutch actor and film director who has appeared in many Dutch and international films.-Biography:...

     as Leonid Vasilev
  • David Atrakchi
    David Atrakchi
    David Atrakchi is an actor who is best known for his role as Malcolm Manville in Transporter 3 and Lanyon in Faces in the Crowd.-Biography:...

     as Malcom Manville
  • Eriq Ebouaney
    Eriq Ebouaney
    Eriq Ebouaney is a French film actor. He is best known for his portrayal as the Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba in the 2000 film Lumumba, as "Blacktie" in Brian De Palma's Femme Fatale and as "Ice" in the 2008 action film Transporter 3 in which he starred opposite Jason Statham.-Early...

     as Ice

DVD and Blu-ray release

Transporter 3 was released on DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....

 and Blu-ray Disc
Blu-ray Disc
Blu-ray Disc is an optical disc storage medium designed to supersede the DVD format. The plastic disc is 120 mm in diameter and 1.2 mm thick, the same size as DVDs and CDs. Blu-ray Discs contain 25 GB per layer, with dual layer discs being the norm for feature-length video discs...

 on March 10, 2009 in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. The single disc DVD contains both fullscreen and widescreen versions of the film. The 2 Disc Fully Loaded Edition DVD will contain a digital copy
Digital copy
Digital Copy provides consumers who purchase a film on DVD or Blu-ray Disc with an additional, digital copy of the movie for devices capable of operating with a file in contrast to a DVD.-Features:...

 that the single disc will not have. A Blu-ray two-disc will also be released, which will contain the digital copy. 1,108,030 units were sold, bringing in $19,707,976 in revenue.

Production

Natalya Rudakova was spotted by Luc Besson on the street as she hurried to her job at a New York hair salon. He paid for 25 acting lessons over a six month period in Paris before she received the role. Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...

 was impressed by her good looks and many freckles. Many professional film critics thought her acting was a weak aspect of the film.

Shooting was initially expected to last for 16 weeks, in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 and Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

. It was also filmed in Odessa
Odessa
Odessa or Odesa is the administrative center of the Odessa Oblast located in southern Ukraine. The city is a major seaport located on the northwest shore of the Black Sea and the fourth largest city in Ukraine with a population of 1,029,000 .The predecessor of Odessa, a small Tatar settlement,...

, Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...

.

Frank Martin drives the Audi A8 6.0 W12
Audi A8
The Audi A8 is a four-door, full-size, luxury sedan car manufactured and marketed by the German automaker Audi since 1994. Succeeding the Audi V8, the A8 has been offered with front wheel drive or permanent four-wheel drive, with multitronic or tiptronic automatic transmissions — and in short- and...

.

Reception

The film has received mixed reviews from critics. The film holds a score of 37%, based on 104 reviews, and an average rating of 4.8 out of 10 on the website Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...

. The consensus stated that the film is a "middling installment in the Transporter franchise that is a few steps down from its predecessors, featuring generic stunts and a lack of energy." On Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...

, the film currently has a score of 51%, based on 26 reviews.

It was released by Lionsgate
Lions Gate Entertainment
Lions Gate Entertainment Corporation is a North American entertainment company. The company was formed in Vancouver, British Columbia in 1997, and is headquartered in Santa Monica, California...

 in the United States. On its opening weekend, the film opened at number 7 with $12 million. As of September 11, 2009, the film has grossed $31.7 million in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 and in Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

and $74.6 million in foreign countries, with a total gross of $106,288,215 worldwide, making it the highest-grossing film in the Transporter trilogy.
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