The Mechanic

The Mechanic – 2011, Simon West

Normally I can watch any film without feeling the need to justify the reason for watching it, but The Mechanic is currently in cinemas, I didn't just Sky+ it like all the other mediocre action films I watch. So I'll just explain how come I ended up watching The Mechanic at the Odeon when there are loads of other films on release right now, in particular all the Oscar contenders; The King's Speech, 127 Hours, The Fighter et all.

My Tuesday evening was planned thus:
4.15pm - meeting with mortgage advisor (65% Loan-To-Value! Gee, no thanks.)
7.00pm - play dodgeball (sport of Kings)

So I had two hours to kill from 5 till 7 and after carefully examining the show times of all the cinemas in Manchester city centre, only The Mechanic was on during the time available to me. It’s a remake of a 1972 Michael Winner film starring Charles Bronson and Jan-Michael Vincent, the lead roles now played by Jason Statham and Ben Foster.





The plot may have been original in ’72, but now it’s just an expectable pastiche of action movie standards; Statham is a clinical assassin who works for some shadowy organisation, his contact in the company is an old friend played by an established actor (in this case Donald Sutherland) whose ten minutes of time on screen is an attempt to add credibility to a lacklustre screenplay. As soon as Sutherland appears on screen it’s obvious he’s going to die, and that Statham will probably kill him, and that he’ll find out the truth later and regret killing his friend and mentor and head off to extract bloody revenge. I predicted a John Woo style ending with the good guy sailing away on the yacht he has always dreamed of owning but it didn’t quite finish like that. Also, unusually for a Statham film, there was no car chase.

Englishman Simon West (director of Con Air) seems more concerned with creating something technically polished and at the very least credible than he does with shooting exiting action. I’ve seen a lot of action films me, and in my opinion the good ones fall into one of two categories, which for the sake of this post I will call ‘Die Hards’ and ‘Hard Boileds’

‘Die Hards’ are good films that just happen to be action films, Die Hard being the most prominent example. I include such greats as Predator 1 and 2, Terminator 1 and 2, Aliens and Under Siege (among many others).

‘Hard Boileds’ are films that are kind of ridiculous and technically not that good, but the spectacle makes them rise above all the other crap action films. I don’t mean these films are ‘so bad they’re good’, I mean they are entertaining enough to be considered good. Hard Boiled, Commando, all the Rambo films and almost every Jackie Chan film made between 1978 and 1995 are good examples.

The Mechanic is not a good action film by either definition, but it had a reported budget of $40 million and stars one of the few ‘bankable’ action stars going. I for one am proud of our Jason, he’s out there kicking ass in big American movies, but the question The Mechanic prompts me to ask is ‘How long before Jason Statham goes straight-to-DVD?’ To try and predict let us examine the careers of Seagal and Van Damme.

Steven Seagal
Born – 1952
First Lead role in a cinematic release – 1988 (age 36), Above The Law
Highest grossing film to date – 1992 (age 40), Under Siege ($156 million including international gross)
First successive Straight-to-DVD – 2003(age 51), Out For A Kill

Jean-Claude Van Damme
Born – 1960
First Lead role in a cinematic release – 1988 (age 28), Bloodsport
Highest grossing film to date – 1994 (age 34), Timecop (over $100 million including international gross)
First successive Straight-to-DVD - 2001 (age 41), The Order

Jason Statham
Born – 1967
First major lead role in a cinematic release – 2002 (age 35), The Transporter
Highest grossing film to date – 2008 (age 41), The Transporter 3 (over $100 million including international gross and DVD sales)
First successive Straight-to-DVD – 2017 (age 50), The Transporter 5

Looks like Statham’s career is most like big Steve’s, which means Jason has another six years or so of action in him. Realistically though, Jason will probably stay in cinemas for years to come playing non-bad-ass characters in romantic comedies and heist/caper movies.

Nice one Jase.