The Mechanic

This is the latest action romp that features Jason Statham (who shot to action stardom with "The Transporter" and "Crank"; prior to last summer's "The Expendables"). It should be noted that this is a "remake" of an early 70's film of the same title starring Charles Bronson. I like a lot of old Bronson stuff; but cannot recall seeing this one. I read the movie's description on Wikipedia; and it sounds as if the two films only loosely resemble each other....with some changes that are major and some that sound more subtle.

I'm going to review this new movie on it's own, as a stand-alone film and not compare with the original; now closing in on 40 years old. What I'll relate it to is more of today's current crop of "action-istas".

Still I must add that I'm intrigued enough to want to eventually track down the original for a viewing. That's a topic for another day.

Now...back to the current film. In this movie Mr Statham plays a similar lone-wolf role to that of "The Transporter"; but this movie goes in a different direction with a less stunning soundtrack and probably more gritty, realistic action scenes than the fabulously fun & original Transporter film (before those so-so sequels).

Statham plays a hitman, a clean-up type of guy. Best description of his work is this: he does jobs that are not necessarily seen as "hits"; he's the old-pro who can pull off the jobs where no-one even knows it's murder. Or better yet, it gets pinned on someone else.

In this movie; it is difficult to give much more plot description without feeling like I'm entering spoiler-territory, but here goes. He plays "Arthur"...one of the best bad-ass*s in the world. There's some cool scenes that establish this. The plot also features some deception & questions the idea of "honor among thieves". On top of all that there's a young "apprentice mechanic" who he's trying to bring along into the business. There eventual tension between the mentor and the trainee....and we get to see who really will end up top dog.

All in all it was fun, seemed fast-paced enough to avoid any feeling of "drag", and features some neat action scenes. While these scenes are intricate, they manage to avoid that "over-the-top" impossibility that some action movies fall into.

Worth seeing at the theater, a nice break from the constant barrage of 3D, and definitely a must for Statham fans---he's at top of his game here.