Remaking a cult classic is definitely the easiest way to make a film and sometimes it works but mostly such an exercise usually results in a senseless mishmash that’s best avoided. Even though it has all the elements that make an action film The Mechanic simply remains a senseless effort to connect the dots.
The Mechanic Plot
Arthur Bishop (Jasaon Statham) is an elite assassin who is probably the best in the trade. Destined to wine, dine and die alone, Bishop operates alone, always looks over his shoulder and follows a ritualistic code. Bishop’s top boss asks him to kill his only friend and handler for ages, Harry McKenna (Donald Sutherland), who seems to be playing double team. Thinking better him that anyone else, Bishop in a bold act of righteousness painlessly eliminates McKenna. Guilt drives him to take McKenna’s estranged son Steve (Ben Foster) under his wings and channelize his anger in a more positive manner. Steve, of course, is rougher than sandpaper and no amount of cajoling can ever slave the beast in him. Needless to say Ben has no idea that Bishop’s the man who killed his dad. A job goes horribly wrong and Bishop comes face to face with a man he last saw dead in a photo that convinced him about McKenna’s deceit. Now the hunk of a killer with a soft heart, how else can you explain his habitual visits to the same prostitute, decides to set things right and along with able sidekick goes on a rampage to get Dean (Tony Goldwyn), the man who deceived him into killing Harry. While Bishop’s hopping mad at Dean, Steve gets to know about his father death but with bullets flying left, right and centre the real question is who out of the two- Bishop or McKenna Jr.- will manage get their vengeance?
Simon West, the man behind action flicks like Con Air and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, seemed to be the right choice to helm the new avatar of The Mechanic but while there’s nothing that really doesn’t play according to the book something about the remake just doesn’t work. West has excellent old fashioned action set pieces, pretty decent star presence and enough pyrotechnics to light up half the world but even with all the ingredients The Mechanic doesn’t rise about the basic.
The film is loud, the action’s pretty visceral and how wrong can you go with Jason Statham in an action film. No one plays the brooding killer better than Statham but here he looks like an Englishman who seems to have lost his way and is desperately looking for directions. His Bishop is clean-cut and sophisticated just like every aberration of a killer seen in Hollywood films; he plays records, lounges on an a classic Eames chair as he ponders about life and restores a vintage car piece by piece when he’s not killing people. The original had Charles Bronson and that was that. But Statham isn’t Bronson and moreover he doesn’t look sad or pleased as the trigger happy Bishop and so one never really feels the pain when he ends McKenna’s life or presents his special lady friend a pup! Foster is as nippy as a hand grenade pin but is also as predictable as the menu at your favorite fast-food joint.
Final Words on The Mechanic
It just doesn’t make any sense to remake a cult classic like The Mechanic and while this isn’t one of Charles Bronson’s most beloved films, the original had the very campy feeling which this one clearly lacks. This is a balls-to-the-wall kind of action film and one doesn’t expect to see things like character development here but a little bit of ambiguity would have helped. Sample this- the modern day guru/god man that team Bishop-McKenna Jr. are hired to kill is a bad guy and so he wastes no time in delivering the perfunctory bad man glint in his eyes when he generally looks at a young woman who comes to get his autograph! With hardly a plot to hoot and acting that won’t find it’s way out of a paper bag, The Mechanic does have one fantastic line that almost makes it worthwhile and it goes something like, “I’m gonna put a price on your head so big, when you look in the mirror your reflection’s gonna want to shoot you in the face.” The Mechanic won’t be remembered this time next year but if you have a strong gut then it’s the one for you this weekend.
