Starring: Jason Statham, Ben Foster, Donald Sutherland and Tony Goldwyn
Directed By: Simon West
Story By: Louis John Carlino
Written By: Richard Wenk and Louis John Carlino
Produced By: Rene Besson, Robert Chartoff, William Chartoff, Rob Cowan, Marcy Drogin,Avi Lerner, John Thompson, David Winkler and Irwin Winkler
Distributor: CBS Films
Rating: R
Running Time: Approximately 92 minutes
Website: themechanicmovie.com
Budget: $40 million
Genre: Action
Release Date: January 28, 2011
There’s actually something inspired about remaking a Charles Bronson movie with Jason Statham. In a lot of ways, Statham is the modern action movie heir to the late Bronson: not a whole lot of emotional range, but damn if you don’t believe that behind that stony expression is a man who will not think twice about putting a bullet in you if you tick him off – all the better if you happen to be a bad guy.
1972’s original The Mechanic is one of Bronson’s better movies, a bleak tale of vengeance right in the Death Wish star’s wheelhouse. Likewise, Statham (of Transporter fame) is at home here, taking on the role of Arthur Bishop, a veteran “mechanic” – he fixes things, and by “fixes things” I mean “kills people.” Arthur is assigned by the shadowy organization he works for to kill his own mentor, Harry McKenna (Donald Sutherland), after evidence surfaces of Harry’s complicity in the deaths of company agents. Confronted with Harry’s betrayal, Arthur reluctantly agrees to be the one to eliminate his old friend. Wracked with guilt, Arthur is given a chance to make amends when Harry’s wayward adult son, Steve (Ben Foster, in the Jan-Michael Vincent role), resurfaces. Steve’s looking for payback against the men he mistakenly believes killed his father, and wants Arthur to teach him all his specialized skills. Arthur takes the angry young man under his wing and shows him what it means to be a “mechanic.”
From there, it’s a fill-in-the-blank of action movie plot contrivances. Is it possible that the slimy leader of Arthur’s company (Tony Goldwyn) wasn’t exactly forthright when he sent Arthur to kill Harry? You might want to play the odds on that one. To quote the late Hoban Washburne, “Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!” Is it possible Steve could find out Arthur killed his father, eventually pitting master and apprentice against each other? It could happen, especially in a Jason Statham movie.
Statham’s Arthur Bishop has a little more Jason Bourne in him than Bronson did, a swagger where Bronson was innately taciturn. Statham grimaces, twitches, shoots people, blows stuff up: basically, all the things Jason Statham does in a movie Jason Statham is in, even going shirtless (what the kids call “somethin’ for the ladies”). He’s paired nicely with Foster, whose Steve has a sleazy desperation to him to contrast Arthur’s icy professionalism. Simon West, gone from directing dreck like Tomb Raider to worse dreck like When a Stranger Calls in recent years, does what he’s good at, directing gonzo action with just enough style to cover up the shallowness of everything else.
The female characters, such as they are, exist as objects and outlets for Arthur and Steve’s macho libidos; sex is an inconvenience for men as intense as these, let alone love. Arthur and Steve are – appropriately, considering the source material – throwbacks to another era, an era where festering rage was okay as long as it involved gunfire and minimal civilian casualties. The Mechanic aspires to little, and on its own terms it succeeds as a diverting exercise in balls-out action. The film doesn’t pretend to promise anything like originality or subtext, but who needs it when dudes are jumping through plate-glass windows? There are a few genuinely memorable scenes and jolting surprises scattered throughout, including a post-seduction brawl and an unfortunate incident involving a hand in a garbage disposal, but for the most part it’s business as usual for the revenge genre. This one’s only for Statham fans or those nostalgic for the R-rated action movies of yore.
2.5 Stars
