High Concept
Am I blogging...or am I pitching my existence?


Tuesday, April 29, 2003

The Pitch: It's like The Transporter meets Memento!  

Continuing this staying home sick and watching bad movies. Although I haven't moved a lot today, I do think the stomach feels better. We'll see how things turn out when I actually get up and get outside for a bit, but right now I'm just appalled--apalled, I tell you--about what the producers of The Transporter are trying to put over on us.

The Transporter is probably the best of the "Kung-Fu vs. Eurotrash" movies that Luc Besson's put out recently. Jason Statham plays a driver in the South of France that makes his money running packages, and finds himself in trouble when he disobeys his own rules and peeks in one. Directed by one of my favorite HK directors (Corey Yuen), The Transporter works largely because all the pieces (English star, French location, Chinese hottie) which shouldn't work together, do, and because the Yuen's knowledge of fight scenes and Statham's willingness to rub oil all over himself and kick ass shirtless with bike pedals on his feet makes for an entertaining flick. Entertaining enough I decided to rent it even though I was one of the seven people who saw it in the theaters (on Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2002 in Auditorium 4--I just found the ticket stub on my bookshelf).

However...

About thirty-five minutes into the movie when I sat up and said, "Wait! Where's the scene where he deflects the missle with serving tray?" At one point, Statham's lovely villa is attacked by thugs who have nine million rounds of ammunition and a rocket launcher. As I recall, the first rocket collapses the roof and almost kills Statham and cutie Qi Shu; the second rocket goes through the front door, Statham deflects it with a serving tray, giving them enough time to get to the dumbwaiter, drop to the basement and escape through the secret hatch as the final missle takes out the whole house.

Well, that's how I remember it, but on the DVD, the second missle flies in, Statham pulls Qu Shi to the dumbwaiter, the kitchen explodes, they drop to the basement and escape just as the final missle takes out the house. I checked out the scene on both widescreen and pan-n-scan versions and it's the same. And yet, just to make sure I wasn't crazy, I watched the theatrical trailer and, sure enough, there's Statham hitting the missle with the serving tray.

Now, the scene of Statham using a service tray to deflect a missle is absurd. That's what makes it great. Also, part of what makes it great is, in the universe of The Transporter, it's not impossible. I read somewhere that rockets in rocket launchers are usually set to explode with timers, not through impact, to avoid guys loading them from blowing themselves to bits. If someone was fast enough and strong enough, you know, they could do the absurd and bat that rocket off to one side.

Statham mentions it in the commentary ("There was a piece where we actually deflected that missle with a tray. [Chuckles] Well, I think it was just a huge stretch of the imagination to make that work. Looked cool, though.") and yet it's not mentioned that it was in the American theatrical release (nor is it any less of a stretch of the imagination when they show the footage, just a second later, of Statham and Qu Shi getting hit with the fireball before they can dive into the water (several stuntpeople were seriously injured by the flames when the stunt didn't go right, but they kept the footage in). Don't you think they should have a warning on the box or something like that? "Altered from its original theatrical release?" Hell, couldn't they have restored it and blurbed it with the other bullshit "extended fight scenes" packed into the additional footage (scenes of people being shot and stabbed were cut to avoid an "R" rating (or worse--there's a disclaimer before each saying they're not suitable for viewers under 18!)). Oh, the movie is goofy enough, and I enjoyed it all the way through, but there's something creepy about the way history has been re-written by the producers of The Transporter--and it makes me wonder how often it happens.

posted by Jeff Lester | 1:31 PM |
linking
Consuming
switching
helping
archiving