Review: The Mechanic (2011)
Name: The Mechanic (2011)
Genre: Action/Crime/Thriller
Director: Simon West
Actors: Jason Statham, Donald Sutherland, Ben Foster
Rating: 3/5
Bishop (Jason Statham) is a high stakes contract killer who excels in his job. The movie opens with one such job which is executed on a Cartel leader with imagination and neatness. The killer tells us in the voice over that he is called a “mechanic” in his “business” and “the best jobs are the ones that nobody knows that you were even there.”
The mechanic is told to bump off his mentor (Donald Sutherland), who is also his frequent employer. True to his calling, he does it as humanely as possible. Enter the unsuspecting mentor’s son (Ben Foster). He wants to apprentice with the mechanic. The “apprentice” learns and passes his “test”. But, the movie demonstrates very subtly that “a certain mindset” and seasoning (“good judgment comes from experience, experience comes from bad judgment”), required to become an accomplished mechanic, still eludes the apprentice.
There is brutal violence (naturally) and some sexual content in this movie. In addition, there are interesting ingredients in the story. There is exploitation of a homosexual leaning and fondness for puppies, in one “job”. A gun, with the words “Amat Victoria Curam” and “Victory Loves Preparation” etched on the two sides of it, given 33 years ago by the Admiral of the Sixth Fleet to the mentor, has a place in the story.
A delicate puppy dog (later named Arthur), lovingly handled, plays a role. The mechanic has a red colored, souped-up two-seat car which becomes fatal to someone’s life. And, the mechanic’s “beloved” LP records playing music system becomes a booby trap. There are diverse targets such as a junkie and depraved “controversial and polarizing religious preacher” and another mechanic (Jeff Chase). Physical combat, apparently “mandatory” in such fight-and-action movies, takes place as a chilling “unequal” brawl between the “apprentice” and a homosexual, puppy-loving mechanic who is a target. Not to be ignored, “automobile bashing” features in the climax.
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