The Mechanic Review

Jason Statham is, as we all know, the go-to-guy for violence, stunts and stubble that entirely covers his head. Sylvester Stallone considered his action credentials well established enough to cast him in last year’s The Expendables, alongside such luminaries of the action genre as Jet Li and Dolph Lundgren. Lately, Statham’ stock in trade has been knock-about, tongue in cheek actioners such asDeath Race and the Crank and Transporter movies. But every action idol needs to clock in a semi-serious, half decent film every once in a while to keep credibility in check and to avoid tumbling into embarrassing, straight to DVD self parody, like Steven Seagal. Is The Mechanic another Statham by numbers or a cut above?

Statham plays Arthur Bishop a hitman working for mysterious company, who performs his assignments with a high level of professionalism and proficiency. Bishop is surprised to learn that his next target is a close friend and colleague, Harry McKenna (Sutherland). After dispatching Harry, Bishop takes his adult son, Steve (Foster) under his wing as an apprentice in an effort to channel the young man’s self-destructive tendencies and for companionship. It also stars Tony Goldwyn, star of Ghost, voice of Disney’s Tarzan and director of currently showing Hilary Swank-’em-up, Conviction. Go figure.

I was reasonably surprised to find myself impressed by The Mechanic on several occasions. Perhaps it’s simply the choice of its eye-catching New Orleans location (which certainly lent Bad Lieutenant and even the animated The Princess and the Frog a certain visual flair), but The Mechanic certainly doesn’t look half bad. The film is shot beautifully and creatively, not at all like your average action thriller. The first act manages to just about avoid dullness and comes over all broody, with some of the original’s existential angst thrown in for good measure. Ben Foster (sadly not Birmingham City’s goalkeeper) is surprisingly good in a role that could easily have been over-egged by a lesser talent. The film generally teeters on the edge of stupidity but somehow manages to avoid falling in.

Those not inconsiderable good points aside, the film has some disturbing problems. Most questionable was its treatment of minorities – the only black character in the film is brutally beaten half to death and the only gay character is killed is also brutalised, though this time all the way to death. Of the film’s four female characters (who have about twelve lines collectively) two are prostitutes (one of which asks Foster to ‘hurt me’) and the other two are a mother and daughter who exist simply to be terrorised and tortured by the male leads. This being the twenty-first century, these issues are really quite inexcusable in any film, but especially in one that would like us to take it seriously.

The film is utterly amoral in its outlook too, but it was actually quite refreshing not to have clear cut good and bad characters. It did make for a vaguely unsatisfying ending, however, as you’re never really sure which of this nasty bunch of characters you want to prevail. The violence was also really quite horrible and nasty, though again, it is something of a relief to have some realism and not ‘cartoon’ violence, as in so many action films. When people get punched, it looks bloody painful and when they get shot, all this red stuff comes spurting out. There’s actually a great deal more red stuff spurting about than I would have expected for a film with a fifteen certificate, which, coupled with a gratuitous and largely unnecessary sex scene (does anyone really want to see a nude Jason Statham grunting all over some poor woman?) must surely push the boundaries of what is acceptable at this age bracket (largely by not portraying any of the above ‘glamorously’, according to the BBFC report).

So, in spite of some incredibly poor creative decisions, The Mechanic does remain a beautifully shot and even somewhat interesting film that perhaps stands a bit above standard action fodder.