Film Review: Jason Statham in ‘The Mechanic’ is a Mindless Repeat of All Prior Gun-Toting Slayers

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CHICAGO – It wouldn’t be a Jason Statham film if in it he was just fixing cars. In “The Mechanic,” his profession is fixing people. And by fixing, like “The Transporter” he’s again cracking skulls.

HollywoodChicago.com Oscarman rating: 2.5/5.0
Rating: 2.5/5.0

But if you’re going to ask audiences to buy into a remake of the 1972 film by the same name with Charles Bronson originating Jason Statham’s role as Arthur Bishop, a film needs to make it less obvious that it’s just modernizing a 1970s flick for the purposes of making new money on a preexisting script.

While “The Mechanic” takes a page from all other hitman movies and employs every trick in the contract killer book we’ve already seen, the one redeeming difference is Statham’s inner dialogue and his cool, calculated demeanor. Sure, this Jason Statham is again a killer with no back story, but this time he’s also a master of restraint, an expert in preparation and ultimately a deadly executioner.

StarRead Adam Fendelman’s full review of “The Mechanic”.

That said, he’s again narrowly doing the one thing he does somewhat well and nothing more. Every hitman movie falls into the same trap. The problem with someone who offs people for a living – no matter how Jason Bourne badass you think you are – is that someone who’s smarter, faster, richer or just plain in the right place at the right time will eventually get ‘cha, too.

And then every hitman film continues being snared in this trap by building a film around one hero who (for no reason at all) is unrealistically granted an invincible shield that allows him to dodge all bullets, avert all car crashes and sexify the token hot chick at any given whim. In “The Mechanic,” Jason Statham has none of these exceptions. We are even to interpret his paying-a-prostitute time with Mini Anden as the film’s “love story” considering he decides to tell her his real name and she names an animal after him. Cute.

“The Mechanic” stars Jason Statham, Ben Foster, Donald Sutherland, Tony Goldwyn, Mini Anden, Jeff Chase, James Logan, Eddie J. Fernandez, Joshua Bridgewater, John McConnell, Christa Campbell, Joel Davis, Mark Nutter, A. Brent Carlson and Lara Grice from director Simon West and writers Richard Wenk and Lewis John Carlino. The film is rated “R” for strong brutal violence throughout, language, some sexual content and nudity. “The Mechanic,” which has a running time of 92 minutes, opened everywhere on Jan. 28, 2011 from CBS Films on a $40 million budget.

StarContinue for Adam Fendelman’s full “The Mechanic” review.

Mini Anden in The Mechanic
Mini Anden in “The Mechanic”.
Image credit: CBS Films

StarContinue for Adam Fendelman’s full “The Mechanic” review.

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