Watching The Transporter, I kept thinking about the connection between the Action movie and the Slapstick comedy. Both rely on the repeated manipulation of space and objects: the finding of secondary (and even tertiary) uses that transform the ordinary into the extraordinary. In one scene, Jason Statham first tips over barrels of oil to make his opponents slip and fall, and then reuses the oil to make his own body slippery enough to glide along the floor and (literally) through his opponents’ fingers. He then snaps the pedals off of a bicycle and locks his feet into the clips, allowing him to stand in the oil spillage without falling down. (The bicycle, of course, is recycled as a weapon.) Oil is used one final time in the scene by Statham’s opponents, who throw it into the ocean and light it on fire in hopes of killing the submerged Statham. Three uses of a single object (oil) beyond its intended, utilitarian purpose. The frequency with which the characters fall on their asses in this scene can also be viewed as the Action equivalent of the “pratfall.”
by Cullen Gallagher | Source: 20th Century Fox DVD
25 Nov 2009 10:06 PM | Submit Comment
