I think people are being a little hard on this derivative, but quite entertaining action flick. There's nothing particularly original about it, but I didn't mind a couple of different approaches taken.
We don't have Frank the Transporter in his fancy black car, but we do get the female Courier on her flash motor bike, essentially with the same background and doing the same sort of thing on 2 wheels, instead of 4. She is taken advantage of (which she naturally doesn't like) and now must find a way to survive and lead her unintended target/victim to an escape from a large, locked, hotel car park, whilst pursued by numerous, well - armed villains.
Olga Kurylenko is serviceable as the unnamed titular courier and the onscreen relationship she develops with Amit Shah who plays the witness to a murder, Nick Murch, evolves from initially annoying, to quite entertaining by the end of the film. I have to admit Gary Oldman does overact like I've never seen him overact before, in the role of a notorious crime lord who is under house arrest in New York, who seeks the elimination of Murch in London.
This is clearly not a big budget film, but unlike others on this forum, I thought the production standards were quite reasonable. The set action pieces were pretty good (without being superlative) and at least they were reasonably lit and not overly dependent on close-ups and super - quick editing. Having much of the story take place in just 2 venues, does help I suppose, when you're on a tight budget.
I did appreciate the fact that this movie features a heroine rather than a hero, a factor I feel tends to enrage many of the fanboys of this type of genre. I also liked the fact that she had to be quite inventive in her defensive strategies, as the screenplay gave reasons she frequently couldn't utilise captured automatic weapons. And like the John McClane Diehard character, it was also more realistic, to see her character, get knocked around quite a bit, by the film's conclusion, which does feature a quite unnecessary final twist.
The other obvious plot hole which needs to be overlooked by prospective viewers is that this is a large car park with lots of cars and yet, no one else ever seems to want to get their vehicle, nor contact hotel management or the police, as to why their cars are inaccessible and why an evident extended gunfight is occurring.
Nevertheless, I really don't think action film aficionados should be put off engaging with this film by the current IMDB rating of 4.8. The Courier is a better film than that score would indicate.
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