The Transporter

I enjoy this show. You have to take it for what it is, a television show based off of a movie series, in which every episode follows the same pattern. 1- Frank gets a job 2- Frank can't complete the job due to some altercation or problem. 3- Frank bangs a random woman. 4- Frank completes the job.

Somewhere in there is action, which Chris Vance, who I knew from the show Dexter, makes very realistic fight scenes for a television show. There is a buddy relationship with his mechanic Dieter, played by Charly Hübner, who is in love with the Audi R8 and names all the cars after women, and obviously a lot of driving.

Overall, I find it fun, I like the landscapes and choices of location.

As action series go, this one is pretty standard. The hero always triumphs, successfully delivering whatever he is given after the requisite car chase and gets the hot babe along the way. I don't find the transporter to be particularly handsome (he reminds me of Harvey Keitel) and he always wins every fight, no mater how many bad guys he's up against, without wrinkling his $1000 suit in the process. My main complaint with the show is the blatant product placement. I wonder how much Audi paid the producers to spotlight their car. The Audi gets better closeups and more screen time than Chris Vance. No subtlety there at all. If you're a German auto enthusiast you will love this show.

Living in Luxembourg I can watch this show on German TV. I stumbled on it for the 1st episode and got caught into it straight away. For a TV series it's amazing how it really tries to stick to the movies by having the main character live in the house on the Cote d'Azur that got blown up in one of the movies. Vance plays real good and the other actors do a fine job too. Great to see that François Berléand as Inspector Tarconi has been taken over from the movies into the series. I highly recommend watching this series as it evolves in a great way and the 6 episodes aired so far have been superb. Can't wait to see the next 6.

As I had seen all Transporter films and got used to Jason Statham in the leading role, it took some to time to accept Chris Vance - in spite of his charm and abilities (most of supporting cast is not striking either). And unlike the films, the series had evident need for additional sponsorship as the role of product placements - starting from Audi's logo and ending with all connected to France/French - is unusually large.

As for the script, it includes bizarre approaches and elements. Well, the events take place mostly in "decent" Western countries, it is odd to watch Frank Martin rapidly and recklessly driving on city streets, sometimes with shootings, and there is hardly any police trying to catch or stop them; fights are often for fight's sake as well and clothing of the involved remain nice and clean; most real bad guys treat the Transporter oddly in a mild manner, etc. etc.

Thus, it is not a high-quality entertainment, but if you have limited time and not eager to ponder on and over all the time, then Transporter: The Series is still more than okay. Although there are casual flashbacks and references to the past, you are not obliged to watch all episodes in strict sequence or missing some of them - you will still get a picture what is going on.

If you are not looking for a deep storyline and just want honest-to-goodness and shamelessly shallow action, you'll like this series. It does not apologize for being "standard", "cliché", or any other derogatory epithet thrown at it. It's just a straight-up, old-fashioned "good guy kicks ass and gets the girl" kind of show. And that's perfectly OK with me. At the end of a day working hard and studying hard or even on a lazy day-off, I don't necessarily want deep plots and Shakespearean epics, I just want brain-dead, no-holds-barred entertainment of the action and suspense genre. And the transporter delivers (pun very much intended)! Heck, just the hot babes and bad girls are well worth the price of admission! :-)