Review: 'The Mechanic' hardly misses the mark

Film: The Mechanic (A)
Director: Simon West
Cast: Jason Statham, Ben Foster, Donald Sutherland
Rating: ***

Arthur Bishop is an amoral assassin who works for a shadowy agency. Every slaying is a symphony for the methodical Bishop, who is loath to leave behind a mess. After learning that his mentor Harry McKenna (Sutherland) leaked information that led to a botched operation in South Africa, he takes out the old man in cold blood.

As fate would have it, Bishop chooses to take McKenna’s self-destructive wreck of a son Steve (Foster) as his protégé and the two work together, taking on characters that are (naturally) a tad greyer in shade than them.

The Mechanic, an up-to-date remake of the Charles Bronson classic, doesn’t stimulate you intellectually, but then again that’s not what it set out to do.

When viewed in perspective, the film packs its punches with an above average fight scene between Steve and a towering homosexual, one of the noteworthy confrontations in the film.

Acting wise, nothing much is required from Statham who essays a stoic killing machine who is always on top of things. Foster is great as the bundle-of-nerves loose cannon Steve who has the capacity to get lost in his own emotions, and realises that it is vengeance that underlies his endeavours.

While The Mechanic is predictable, there are enough well-choreographed action sequences for fans of the genre to fawn over after the picture comes to a halt.