Review of The Mechanic (2011) by Caesar M — 23 Sep 2012

I haven't seen Jason Statham much outside of The Transporter series and despite not having the best movies, he's entertaining to say the least. The Mechanic on the other hand unfortunately suffers from poor storytelling which ruins the entire experience despite it's great actors.

The Mechanic, not about a guy who fixes cars, follows an elite hit man as he teaches his apprentice who has a connection to one of his previous victims. The plot is largely uneven, we don't even get one action set piece for the first half which wouldn't be a problem if the movie made an effort to developed it characters in any interesting way. There's not a single character you'll care about in this movie since director Simon West does not know how to tell a story. He just doesn't know how to make the best of the material he has to work with or how to properly give expositions to move the plot forward. The few action scenes it does have are good, but by the time you see them you'll stop caring about what happened the plot. Jason Statham is in top form here, it's just unfortunate the movie dull plot really ruins any fun we might have watching him killing baddies. The cast is well put to together and give solid performance, but once again, the bad storytelling won't make you care about the characters these actors are portraying. As for the title, Jason Statham does fix one car, but it blows up which makes him a horrible Mechanic.

The Mechanic dull plot single handily ruins watching our actors perform and the well done violence on screen are essentially pointless without a plot to get behind it. This is a pretty dull action movie with no surprises nor a good direction, not even it cast makes this worth recommending.