On the couch

DVD REVIEW

The Mechanic *
Directed by: Simon West
Starring: Jason Stathan, Ben Foster, Donald Sutherland, Tony Goldwyn, Mini Anden

The world of professional killing – in the movies anyway – is full of very functional sounding language. “Cleaners” do “jobs” or “wet works” for “clients”. Targets are eliminated. The tools of this work are “pieces”.

Jason Statham seems to spend a lot of his time in this world. A world of one word job, and film, titles – Transporter, Expendables, Crank – and monosyllabic heroes, grunting, muttering and threatening their way through a series of ass kickings and occasional romantic encounters en route to an arbitrary conclusion usually marked by a titanic battle of some sort, the death of an arch-enemy and the credits.
As has become his stock in trade it seems, the Brit action star plays a man with a shady past who lives on the criminal fringe committing unspeakable acts with barely a whisper of conscience. Arthur Bishop (Statham) is a “mechanic”, a hired killer prized by his unnamed employers for his efficiency and success. That he’s the best in the business is to be expected; you could hardly start a trailer with deep throat voiceover guy saying, “he was one of the most distinctly above average killers in the world…”
After he’s betrayed by his shady employers (has any professional assassin ever ended their career with a quiet drinks reception and an engraved clock?), Arthur takes his former mentor’s (Donald Sutherland) errant son under his wing to teach him the art of death while simultaneously plotting his revenge against the aforementioned shady employers.
It’s all fairly textbook stuff but it serves its purpose as a framework for Stay’fam and his apprentice, Steve (Ben Foster), to go about dishing out steaming great hats full of whupass to any and all comers while the audience glories in their martial prowess and smirks at their occasional quips.
The problem is, for a movie that sells itself on its action credentials, there’s divil the bit of excitement to be had for almost the first 45 minutes. As much as it’s nice to see Donald Sutherland roll around the place as a cranky, paranoid former assassin type, it’s a schtick that withers in the face of Stay’fam’s robotic “acting” and other than the opening set piece that establishes Arthur’s badassness there’s not too much to deter you from hitting stop and watching America’s Most Agonising Furiniture Mishaps instead.
When it does get around to showing up, however, both the story and action sequences are entertaining enough. There’s explosions and fight scenes that will provoke a few “oohs” and “ows” and even a bit of intrigue tacked on for the final third that, if focused on earlier could’ve made this a much more entertaining prospect altogether. Can Arthur trust Steve? Can Steve trust Arthur? By the time the questions are asked you won’t really care about the answers.
There’s a certain brotherly relationship between Statham and Foster – both close to Sutherland’s Harry, Jason is the dependable, disciplined, loved adopted son while Foster is, literally, the red-headed child, a source of bitter disappointment. For all its Shakespearean potential, however, it’s a dynamic that gets played out better over the two minutes of the trailer than it does over the film’s 100-odd minutes.
It’s a shame because while Stay’fam seems happy these days to do his best impression of a glowering chunk of polystyrene in most of his films, Foster ain’t half bad. Given the chance, he could have given his character more depth than the three towers of tortured souls – hat-wearing, scowling and smoking.
But it’s not to be. The underwhelming cast is rounded out by Tony Goldwyn as the evil guy from “the company” and Mini Anden as “the girl”. While Quinn fulfils his role more than adequately, Anden’s only function seems to be to affirm Arthur’s credentials as a man’s man’s man’s man and not a completely humourless git.
There’s a lot about The Mechanic that, if fixed, could have made it a thoroughly good little action flick. Sadly the work wasn’t done and it’s best left up on bricks in the back garden.