I love me a good old-fashioned action movie. The big problem nowadays is finding an actor to be convincing enough to pull it all off. Today with the help of computers and snazzy editing, films can make anyone become an action star (remember Drew Barrymore in Charlie’s Angels!!!), but how about someone a bit more believable?
Jason Statham has been kicking around for awhile in his own action films that have been a throwback to the 80’s action films of the past. He has always been in hit or miss films for me. His Transporter and Crank franchises have been a success with audiences. And he’s starred in one really great underrated action flick in my opinion – The Bank Job.
In a remake of the 1972 Charles Bronson film The Mechanic Statham adds yet again another entertaining actioner on his resume and I think one of his better ones. Statham plays Arthur Bishop, a world-class assassin who takes on an apprentice and teaches him how he has become the best at his trade. There really aren’t any likable characters in the film and the plot is nothing we haven’t seen before, but that’s ok.
With a supporting cast that includes Ben Foster, Donald Sutherland and Tony Goldwyn, everyone is a bad guy, even our hero. But the film does deliver on the action, which is the whole point of a film like this. There are some enjoyable action set pieces and Statham has a soft spoken charisma that draws me in.
Certainly not the best action film or even the best Statham film, but The Mechanic is an ideal late Saturday night kind of action flick.
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