Review: THE MECHANIC

This is the second time in a week I’ve reviewed a remake of one of my favorite movies. When I reviewed the I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE remake the other day I declared it “an example of why I don’t get bent out of shape when one of my favorite movies is remade. Sometimes they get it right”�. I’m happy to report that the same can be said of the new version of THE MECHANIC. It’s an excellent action movie on its own merits and the first really good movie of the new year. Usually  films like this are fueled by pure kinetic energy. They move so fast and make so much noise that you don’t realize, until the credits begin to roll, that there was no story. THE MECHANIC actually tells a story, and it’s a good one, lifted mostly from the original 1972 film that starred Charles Bronson (and was one of his best). Jason Statham stars as Arthur Bishop, a ‘mechanic‘ – a crack assassin with a strict code and unique talent for cleanly eliminating targets. After he’s tricked into murdering his mentor and close friend Harry McKenna (Donald Sutherland), Arthur takes the dead man’s loose-cannon son Steven (Ben Foster) under his wing and trains the young apprentice in the ways of the hitman. When Steven begins to suspect Arthur was responsible for his father’s death, a deadly game of cat-and-mouse ensues.

THE MECHANIC doesn’t break any new ground in the hit-man genre, but it delivers the action goods with style. Where the Bronson film was all cold and emotionless mood, this new version is closer to the type of paint-by-number modern action film that employs dazzling sorts of physical grace and first rate stuntwork. It’s an old-school, straight-up, no-holds barred adventure but the movie wisely takes its time, spacing out the hits to let the two characters develop personalities. The action sequences are well done, but they’re not the focus of the film; the movie’s real intrigue lies in the way the two actors play off each other and, though it’s obvious their father-and-son-type relationship is going to end in violence, there is plenty of tension in how it plays out. Like Bronson, Statham is an actor specializing in a quality where he always seems ready to explode at a moment’s notice but manages to keep a calm, stoic demeanor, and he’s the right star to fill Bronson’s shoes here. He’s not as stone-faced and silent as Bronson was in the 1972 original, but by today’s wisecracking action hero standard, he keeps his mouth mostly shut. Ben Foster makes an effective sidekick in a role that Jan-Michael Vincent essayed as a slacker surfer dude in the original. Foster’s more tightly wound here (isn’t he always?) but he’s a good actor and his character shows real depth, though it’s a bit unbelievable that he would learn so many tricks of the trade in such a short time. Director Simon West (CON AIR) strikes just the right balance between blood, humor, and camaraderie. Aside from the wheelchair-bound Harry, the hitman team’s victims are conveniently deplorable: a Columbian drug lord, a slimy arms dealer, a perverted religious cult leader, and a hulking fellow assassin with a weakness for Chihuahuas and young boys. The audience enjoys seeing these slimeballs get their gory comeuppance, helping THE MECHANIC fulfill its R-rated promise for action fans. The remake jettisons the nihilistic irony of the original ending in favor of a more sequel-friendly climax, but that’s okay. I look forward to more adventures of THE MECHANIC.

4 of 5 Stars

My Resin model kit of Charles Bronson in the Original THE MECHANIC: