The Transporter (TV Series) Sixteen Hands (2014) User Reviews

Transporting a thoroughbred

[Tweekums · 6/10 · 11 March 2016]

This episode sees Frank in the United States, where he has been employed to transport Daksha, a champion race horse, from its stables in Kentucky to the race course in New York where it is to take part in the prestigious Belmont Stakes. It won't be an easy journey though; somebody is determined that Daksha won't be competing. In order to confuse the opposition Frank and Alice, the Jockey, head off in a vehicle pulling a horsebox while Jules drives a removal van that actually contains Daksha. Inevitably they have a few run-ins with the thug trying to harm the horse while Daksha's owner, Rae Henson, is trying to find out who is behind it all; she is convinced that it is the owner of a rival horse that is second favourite in the race. To further complicate matters it becomes apparent that Daksha isn't in perfect health and Alice fears that while Daksha could still win the race it is possible that the exertion could be fatal.

I've been enjoying this series but as other reviews have pointed out there are just too many silly things in this episode… you don't need to be an expert in horses to know that setting off a loud alarm when horses have got loose in a barn is just a way to make matters worse. This was in an early scene and things don't get more believable later. The whole episode reminded me of series from the seventies and eighties where the protagonists would help a different person each week and the action wasn't particularly intense. The early twist, where we learn that the horse was in the removal van rather than not the horsebox was so obvious, even without Alice's comment about the horse being quiet… this meant the scene where the bad guy tried to run them off the road wasn't very tense. On the plus side if you can ignore these faults there are some moments along the way and it was good to see Linda Thorson appear as Rae almost fifty years after she found fame in the final season of 'The Avengers'. Overall a rather disappointing instalment; not terrible but not up to the standard of most of the series.

I'm a fan but please, please, please stop treating viewers like we're complete idiots.

[info-18832 · 3/10 · 4 February 2015]

SPOILER ALERT: Here's the first 5 minutes...

Opening scenes have a race horse running on a track in a relatively casual fashion while being timed with a stop watch. And, as other commentary on IMDb has noted, the girl testing the horse's speed is way to big to ever race a horse in such a race. And, why one would time a horse running at a relatively casual speed, I don't know. But, interestingly, the horse passes the timer position by some 15-30 yards, judging by its speed, at which point the timer is clicked. So, naturally, I'm wondering about what marker position on the track determined the point of timing. As the camera turned to immediately show us, the horse had managed to come to a screeching halt a mere 25 yards past the timer already turning on its way back. So, this whole scene seemed like a typically ridiculous movie moment, one of those things where no one is supposed to notice any details, and it was punctuated by the fact that no one was interested in the results on the stop watch. No one recorded the numbers or discussed the data.

It gets better: as the horse is being put away in the barn, the girl notices that all of the other stalls have been opened and the other horses are casually headed out of the barn. Instead of taking control of the horses and leading them back to their respective stalls - as an experienced rider would certainly do - she instead reaches over and hits the conveniently placed panic button to activate the barn siren. Apparently, horses escaping is such a frequent problem, they have a siren dedicated to the problem. Oddly, no one particularly comes running to help or even inquire about the siren.

It gets better: It turns out that the open stalls was an evil sabotage by the bad guy. What exactly that was to accomplish is not at all clear. But, this all comes to a head just as our hero, The Transporter, arrives at the barn. He is met by the bad guy, a barn ninja, armed with (I'm not making this up... the writers did) not the usual sword or throwing stars as one might expect. No, this ninja is armed with a nail gun, apparently with the standard safety attachment removed. I can't imagine how many construction implements he might have tried before settling on the electric nail gun. Perhaps the belt sander proved too abrasive or the floor sander was too cumbersome. It's hard to say what they suggest at ninja school, but this one had decided on the electric nail gun (no air power was attached).

It gets better: While the ninja is unable to actually hit anyone with the nails he's shooting all over the place, the fight gives our ninja a 12-15 foot advantage to escape out the door. With our hero close on his heels, The Transporter exits the door only to find that the ninja's lead has magically increased to 40 yards. In fact, the ninja has already started his large SUV parked conspicuously on the property and quickly drives away. I would have thought it odd to sneak stealthily onto the property, wear the traditional black hood, conceal secretly within the barn, but yet not mind that you've parked your big SUV right in the middle of the property for all to see. Silly me - clearly I just don't understand as it clearly worked just fine. Not one person on the property noticed anything odd about it at all.

More importantly, the writers or director apparently thought no one would notice anything odd about any of it. Either the viewing public is brain-dead (a distinct possibility), or the writers and directors are. Either way - very disappointing.

Hilariously inaccurate re horse racing matters.

[sphilcox-31086 · 2/10 · 21 May 2015]

First let me say I LOVE The Transporter TV series but this episode 11, Sixteen Hands was one of the worst TV viewing hours I have sat through. I work in the Australian horse racing industry and endorse everything Jerry Galloway says in his review, so I won't repeat but surely the director/writers could have checked with even the smallest horse trainer somewhere in America on how to handle the first few scenes in the horse barn and at least got it a lot more accurate than the hilariously impossible scenario produced. Frank and Jules are warned the horse is easily spooked, yet they yank open the "moving" van door in a manner that would have any thoroughbred flinching with fright. The girl trainer/rider takes the horse out into an open paddock with hay rolls and horse stands there like a concrete statue, no way a highly strung thoroughbred would stand like that in an unknown paddock. It is over 700 miles from Kentucky to Belmont Park, NY and there is no way any responsible owner/trainer would choose to truck the horse overnight on the night before the race.