The Mechanic
for strong brutal violence throughout, language, some sexual content and nudity.
Reviewed by: Eric Bell
CONTRIBUTOR
| Moral Rating: | Extremely Offensive |
| Moviemaking Quality: |
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| Primary Audience: | Adults |
| Genre: | Action Thriller Drama Remake |
| Length: | 1 hr. 32 min. |
| Year of Release: | 2011 |
| USA Release: |
January 28, 2011 (wide—2,700+ theaters) DVD: May 17, 2011 |
| Featuring | Jason Statham (Arthur Bishop), Ben Foster (Steve McKenna), Donald Sutherland (Harry McKenna), Tony Goldwyn (Dean Sanderson), See all » |
| Director | Simon West—“Con Air,” “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider,” “The General’s Daughter” |
| Producer | Millennium Films, Nu Image Entertainment GmbH, René Besson, See all » |
| Distributor | CBS Films |
“Someone has to fix the problems.”
I suppose after Hollywood has spat out a thousand action movies it begins to be a bit difficult to come up with fresh material and original thought. Simon West, director of “The Mechanic,” apparently struggles with this dilemma and attempts to rehash previous story lines by jazzing them up with wild stunts and flashy weapons. Apparently the only new eye popping material the director could find to surge our adrenaline was even more graphic murders, astoundingly disgusting sex scenes and plunges into horrific sexual deviancy. While I have enjoyed Jason Stathum (Arthur the mechanic) in several other coy action movies, this one dove off the charts when it comes to material fit for a human audience.
The storyline goes something like this. A professional assassin demonstrates his incredible skill at terminating lives. We are lured into being enamoured with this skill by his complete command and obscurity as a mechanic or “problem” solver. We see his sense of focus as he callously completes his assignments. Then, he is confronted with a situation that he could not foresee—ending the life of his friend and mentor. Without much hesitation, he completes this task as well. Having now met all mental adversaries possible, he must now decide if he will let this creep into his mind and distract him from the perfectly trained mechanic that he has become.
Enter the reviled son of the mentor. Ardently ignored by his father “Harry”, Steve seeks the affection and tutelage of Arthur, not aware that it was Arthur who ended Harry’s life. Steve is a loose cannon with a sordid past and a reputation as being incompetent and a drifter. His skills are quickly honed with the help of Arthur, albeit through much exasperation and irreverence. Pain, suffering, violence and destruction suit Steve in all aspects of life, and he carries this out without conscious. In the end, Steve must decide who is important to him and which life he must terminate.
It’s a rather undeveloped plot that is really held together by shocking scenes of violence, sex, murder and mayhem. In the end, I felt rather unfulfilled with the story and left wanting for answers that never were addressed. I was disappointed that more of a quality effort was not relied upon rather than typical gratuitous Hollywood filth.
Should you view this movie? No. Nada. As in NEVER. Why? This is the kind of movie that we don’t want to vote for by spending our money on it. Even if the 20 sum accounts of the f-word and every variation of it don’t bother you, or the occasional da*@, sh*@, bast@*d, B.S.; then the all too frequent and casual denigration of the Lord’s various names should keep you from enduring this. I can’t even repeat the multiple derivatives of God’s holy name interlaced with the f-word, d-word, etc., without feeling like I’m participating in the horrid disrespect and blasphemy.
Then, you have to decide whether you can endure scenes of lesbians engaged in physical contact, full female nudity, the main character having sex with some girl that he meets on occasion, a predatory homosexual man with a taste for younger men, a sexual encounter by 2 people bent on abusing each other for pleasure, and multiple deaths with graphic and disturbing violent details. It was so sickening and disturbing that I felt nauseous and spent many moments with my eyes closed. My only ability to endure this gross display of filth was to complete this review and potentially spare others the images that are now stuck in my head.
I just can’t get over the blatant display of horrific events that are being sold in this film. Does viewing those that exchange affection, man for man or woman for woman, become appealing? Are we so unfulfilled that watching someone else participate in sex fulfills us? Does it really require brutal and gory murders to give us the excitement we need to feel good and justify a 20 dollar night out? Movies like this are a warning sign of where our society is headed. Please let Hollywood know this is NOT what you are wanting by choosing a movie based on quality rather than deluded adrenaline laced horrors.
Violence: Heavy / Profanity: Heavy / Sex/Nudity: Extreme
See list of Relevant Issues—questions-and-answers.
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Moral rating: Extremely Offensive / Moviemaking quality: 3
I saw the original when I was a boy, and it was a better movie. Why? Because all the bad people got their just deserts, in the end. This movie does not reach that standard, and, accordingly, I do not believe that it is worth seeing. However, I believe that the 1972 movie was worse, as an attack on Christian sexual morality, than this one. It was particularly shocking that Bronson in the 1972 film appeared to be having a romantic relationship with a girlfriend who had written the principal hitman (Bronson) a poem, yet it turned out that she was a whore.
This movie tends to obscure some of the sex scenes, and there is a homosexual, but then he is not portrayed as a role model! He gets killed in a gruesome way. But “when push comes to shove,” if you are really enjoying films like this on a regular basis, then you have issues—if you are addicted to them, you need an intervention. It is really borderline pornography in the larger sense—without any vindication of good’s ascendancy over evil in the end—unlike the 1972 version.
One advantage of this film is that the role played by Jan-Michael Vincent—who was an extremely handsome young man at the time—is now played by someone whom your children would run from, if they saw him on a street! It is accordingly less corrupting. The acting was of a high standard. If you are genuinely interested in the drift in the culture since the days of George McGovern’s presidential bid, then it is worth seeing this film and the original, but, as entertainment, it is somewhere near reading Hustler Magazine—it is corrupting, without any redeeming features.
My Ratings: Moral rating: Very Offensive / Moviemaking quality: 3