2011 Ranked
Non-2019 First Time Watches Ranked
Directors Ranked: Simon West
Writers Ranked: Richard Wenk

Film #55 of my 100 Degrees, 100 Movies Challenge

Common actor from previous film: Ben Foster

PREVIOUS FILM: 30 Days Of Night
NEXT FILM: Invasion Of The Body Snatchers

"Good judgment comes from experience and a lot of that comes from bad judgment."

There's just something about Jason Statham that makes it impossible for me to hate him...except for in Wild Card. That movie sucked. And Parker. That was even worse. So, there is something about Statham that makes it nearly impossible for me to hate him. The Mechanic is a generic, flawed and, at times, bad action film, but I was entertained like a motherfucker.

Stath gives his usual Stath performance. Cool, calm and collected. You know what you're getting there. The performances of Donald Sutherland and Ben Foster were both solid though, especially the latter who I thought was great.

This thing is full of overused action tropes...there is a scene where a bad guy literally has to shoot down a straight line...it'd be harder to miss than to hit Statham and yet he somehow misses after firing off a whole clip. So, that's the kind of shit to expect in this film.

The thing is though, the action scenes are still really cool...Simon West, not the greatest director by any means, but he does a decent job shooting the action shots here. They can be a little choppy but it's not too bad. I liked the way Statham would cover up the deaths...that whole part of the story was cool...the way the "mechanics" functioned. I quite liked that and exploring it a bit more could've helped the film somewhat.

Overall, there are worse ways to spend 90 minutes, especially if you like seeing bad guys get shot...cos that happens quite a bit.