The Mechanic (Simon West) 2011

I hate the month of January for movies. I haven’t been out in so long. I get so stir crazy that I sometimes go to the theaters for movies in which I would never go ordinarily. I would not normally spend 7-10 bucks to see The Mechanic in theaters.

The Mechanic is a remake of a movie of the same name which starred Charles Bronson. The original is probably the most underrated Bronson movie. But instead of a more dramatic movie about a soul crushingly lonely hit man, instead we get essentially The Transporter 4. Which, I mean, that is not necessarily a bad thing. I’m always saying I don’t necessarily have a problem with remakes as long as they do something interesting with it.

The story is about Arthur Bishop (Jason Statham) who is a mechanic; a hit man who makes his victim’s deaths look like accidents. Bishop is put on a job to kill his mentor (played by Donald Sutherland) which he completes. Bishop feels sorry for his son (and black sheep of the family) Steve who is played by Ben Foster. Bishop trains Steve to be a mechanic and the two later go on a mission of revenge on the people that ordered the hit on Sutherland’s character.

The best thing I can say about this movie is that I wasn’t bored by it. Mechanic does just enough for me to be mildly entertained by everything and to provide a distraction for a brief period of time. The action is rather standard. There are a few shootouts and your stock chase scenes. You don’t get any of the Statham fight scenes like you are used to like in the Transporter movies which is rather disappointing. Actually the part I appreciated most in the movie was not Statham (who is a block of wood) but the acting of Foster. He is given the only meaty part and Foster gives a very good performance given the schlocky movie he is in. You almost want him to save it for a movie people are actually going to see.

The word I keep going back to is “stock”. Everything here is so by the numbers. And while it is all done well and I have no major gripes about it, there is nothing that really stands out either. The acting is okay, the action is okay, the story is dumb but does enough to get things moving and not be too stupid. If you were to rent this movie and you are a Statham fan then I think you would like it. Don’t waste good money on this at the theaters though. Really I would rather you all just rent the original and forget this one.