The Mechanic
Professional assassin Arthur Bishop (Jason
Statham) is at the top of his game, an elite and merciless killer
capable of getting the job done right and walking away without asking
questions. The agency he works for specialises in making murders look
like accidents, and all is going swimmingly until Bishop learns his
wizened mentor of many years (Donald Sutherland) is in reality a double
agent who must be eliminated. Following approximately seven seconds of
soul searching Bishop agrees to take on the job, asking few questions as
is his wont, though quickly learns the truth is a little more complex.
Taking a confused and recently orphaned stoner (Ben Foster) under his
muscular wing for no discernable reason, Bishop must stab, shoot and
karate kick his way to the truth, if possible whilst shirtless or at the
very least clad in the latest designer threads.
Bishop is, as almost all lead characters in
these films, a vision of manly perfection from the outset. He can have
any woman he likes, drives a fancy antique sports car and lives in a
charming secluded chateau on a picturesque lake. Happily given his
choice of occupation he can also walk away from any job, and get in and
out of any building or private residence ever constructed, without his
presence being detected at any point. ‘There’s no one better than you,’
a bearded Sutherland informs his protégé at one point. ‘You’re a
goddamned machine.’ So too, apparently, was the android who penned the
script – only a robot, and a fairly unsophisticated one at that, could
concoct a plot this formulaic in the second decade of the 21st
century.
A hard-working but largely unsatisfying
remake of the 1972 Charles Bronson film, The Mechanic combines
all that’s best and worst about the action genre. It’s fast-paced and
noisy, full of explosions, manly Eastwood-esque squinting and bad guys
getting the stuffing knocked out of them in various inventive ways. The
action sequences are expertly staged and undeniably thrilling – by this
point Statham knows what he’s doing, as does director Simon West, whose
previous credits include similarly naff adrenaline-fuelled blockbusters
like Con Air and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and whose next
directorial outing will be The Expendable 2.
The main problem with The Mechanic,
however, is that it’s so wilfully and unrelentingly mindless,
sacrificing lucidity for bombast at every conceivable turn. That may
have worked to perfection in Con Air but it’s endlessly
frustrating here. From the outset the plot makes little if any sense –
why didn’t Bishop even think to question the accusations of his shady
boss, especially when they concerned a close friend of several decades?
Why on earth would he agree to help Foster’s out of the goodness of his
heart when he’s supposed to be a merciless, cold-blooded assassin? And
how, even under this expert tutelage, did Foster become transformed
almost overnight from an unemployed wastrel into a human wrecking ball,
dispatching enemy after enemy his puny fists of fury?
I’m sure I don’t know. The Mechanic
is entertaining enough, and Statham, Foster and Sutherland all put in
accomplished performances. Ultimately though there are few surprises, a
number of monumental plot holes and an unrelenting sense of ‘been there,
done that’ that mark this outing as the action equivalent of paint by
numbers.
Audio & Video
Picture quality is pristine, as you’d
expect from a feature shot in HD, and the high octane 5.1 surround
soundtrack is as pounding and pulsating as could be hoped for. Also
available are descriptive narration for the vision impaired and
descriptive subtitles for the hearing impaired. No ordinary subs
available though.
Special Features
Not much on offer in this regard, just an
alternate ending to the opening sequence (that was evidently deemed
insufficiently stunt-ridden) and four extended scenes. All up they run
just over ten minutes.
