The Mechanic (2011 film)

The Mechanic
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Simon West
Produced by	Irwin Winkler Robert Chartoff David Winkler William Chartoff
Written by	Lewis John Carlino Richard Wenk
Story by	Lewis John Carlino
Starring	Jason Statham Ben Foster
Music by	Mark Isham
Cinematography	Eric Schmidt
Edited by	T.G. Herrington Todd E. Miller
Production company	CBS Films Millennium Films
Distributed by	CBS Films
Release dates	January 28, 2011 (2011-01-28) (North America)
Running time	93 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$40 million[1]
Box office	$62–$76.3 million[1][2]

The Mechanic is a 2011 American action thriller film starring Jason Statham and Ben Foster. Directed by Simon West, it is a remake of the 1972 film of the same name, directed by Michael Winner, starring Charles Bronson and Jan-Michael Vincent. Statham stars as Arthur Bishop, a professional assassin who specializes in making his hits look like accidents, suicides or the acts of petty criminals.^[3] It was released in the United States and Canada on January 28, 2011. A sequel is due for release in 2016.

Plot

Arthur Bishop works as a "mechanic". He sneaks into the lavish home of a Colombian Drug Cartel leader and discreetly drowns him in his own pool. Upon returning to his home in Louisiana, he later meets with his friend and mentor, Harry McKenna, who pays Bishop for his work.

Later, Bishop finds that his new assignment is to kill Harry. Bishop's employer confirms by phone that the contract is correct, whereupon Bishop requests a face-to-face meeting. Dean tells Bishop about a failed mission in South Africa, in which assassins of Bishop's agency were killed. Dean relates that only two people knew about the mission—himself and Harry—and that Harry had been paid for the contract details. Bishop reluctantly kills Harry with his own gun and makes it look like a carjacking. At Harry's funeral, Bishop meets Harry's reckless son Steve, who swears vengeance anyway he can. Bishop stops Steve from trying to bait and kill a would-be carjacker and decides to train him as a mechanic. He adopts a chihuahua and instructs Steve to take the dog with him to a coffee shop each day at the same time. As Steve settles in to his routine, Bishop escalates his training by taking him to observe a contract kill.

Bishop later gives Steve a contract of his own. The target is a mechanic for another agency named Burke, who frequents the same coffee shop as Steve. Burke's only weaknesses are that he is interested in young men and small dogs. Burke makes his move on Steve and invites him out for drinks. Bishop instructs Steve to slip a large dose of Rohypnol into Burke's drink to cause an overdose. Steve ignores the instructions and instead goes with Burke to his apartment. Burke begins to undress, and Steve attempts to strangle him with a belt as Bishop had done with an earlier assignment. Steve manages to kill Burke after much effort and a lengthy fight. Dean expresses his disapproval of Bishop's use of Steve for the Burke contract, but Bishop replies that he was given that contract through Harry and not Dean.

Bishop is given a contract to kill Andrew Vaughn, the leader of a cult-like church. Steve and Bishop plan to inject Vaughn with adrenaline to simulate a heart attack, for which the paramedics would administer a fatal dose of epinephrine. A doctor arrives and sets Vaughn up with an IV of ketamine, which would inhibit the epinephrine's effects. They improvise and suffocate him in his hotel room, but are discovered and forced into a shootout with the guards. They slip out while the building is being evacuated and fly home separately.

At the airport, Bishop sees a supposed victim of the mission that Harry allegedly sold out. Bishop realizes that Dean had tricked him into killing Harry, and that Dean engineered the failed mission to cover up his own shady dealings. Later, Bishop is ambushed by a hit squad. After killing them, he discovers that Dean was behind the hit. Bishop goes home to call Steve, only to find that Steve has also been ambushed at Bishop's house. Bishop directs Steve to a hidden gun, which Steve uses to kill his ambushers. Bishop has Steve gather supplies for their new mission while he plots how to get to Dean. In the process, Steve finds his father's gun and realizes that Bishop killed Harry.

Bishop and Steve kill Dean in an ambush. On the way back, Bishop notices Steve carrying Harry's gun. When they stop for gas, Steve floods the ground with fuel while pretending to fill the truck. He walks to a safe distance and shoots the gas, blowing up Bishop's truck with Bishop still inside. Steve returns to Bishop's house and performs two actions that Bishop told him not to do: playing a record on the turntable, and taking the 1966 Jaguar E-Type Bishop had been working on. As he is driving away, Steve notices a note on the passenger seat: "Steve, if you're reading this, then you're dead!" Moments later, the car explodes, killing him. At the same time, Bishop's house also explodes. Back at the gas station, a security video reveals that Bishop had escaped from the truck, seconds before the explosion. Bishop gets into a spare truck he had by the beach and drives away.

Cast

• Jason Statham as Arthur Bishop
• Ben Foster as Steve McKenna
• Tony Goldwyn as Dean Sanderson
• Donald Sutherland as Harry McKenna
• Jeff Chase as Burke ^[4]
• John McConnell as Andrew Vaughn
• Mini Andén as Sarah
• Stuart Greer as Ralph

Production

Irwin Winkler and Robert Chartoff, producers of the 1972 original Mechanic, sought to make an update. Pre-rights to the remake were sold in February 2009 at the Berlin Film Festival. (Variety reported that the screenplay was written by Karl Gajdusek.) Director Simon West and Jason Statham were announced as part of the project three months later.^[5] Ben Foster and Donald Sutherland were cast alongside Statham in October 2009.^[6] Filming began in New Orleans, Louisiana on October 14 and lasted for nine weeks.^[7] Filming locations included St. Tammany Parish,^[8] the World Trade Center in downtown New Orleans^[9] and the Algiers Seafood Market.^[10]

Music

The Mechanic: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
Film score by Mark Isham
Released	January 25, 2011
Length	71:36
Label	MIM Records MIM002
Mark Isham chronology
The Crazies (2010) The Mechanic (2011) The Factory (2011)

The soundtrack music is by Mark Isham, with two exceptions :

• Franz Schubert's 1827 Trio No. 2 in E-flat major for piano, violin, and violoncello, D. 929, which is played when Bishop returns from a mission. The record was released on January 25, 2011 via MIM Records label.

• and "Better Off Dead" by Linnzi Zaorski, herself playing the "Jazz Club Singer".

All songs written and composed by Mark Isham. 

Release

Theatrical run

The Mechanic was released in the United States and Canada on January 28, 2011. Millennium Films sold U.S. distribution rights to CBS Films for the release. It was expected to perform well with male audiences, with its release a week before Super Bowl XLV.^[11]

The film grossed $11.4 million on its opening weekend in the U.S. and Canada. To date it has grossed a total of $29.1 million in those countries and $16.7 million in other territories, for a worldwide total after a recount of over $51 million.^[1]

Critical reception

Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gives The Mechanic a score of 53% based on reviews from 156 critics, and reports a rating average of 5.6 out of 10.^[12] At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film received an average score of 49% based on 35 reviews.^[13]

Roger Ebert awarded the film two out of four stars and said, "Audiences have been drilled to accept noise and movement as entertainment. It is done so well one almost forgets to ask why it has been done at all."^[14]

TV advertisement ban

On 1 June 2011, the BBC website confirmed that the TV advertisement for this film had been banned from television by the Advertising Watchdog.^[15]

The TV commercial was broadcast during the teen show Glee and received 13 viewer complaints. The advert reportedly showed "a man's head exploding" and showed a "stream of violent imagery" according to the Advertising Standards Authority.

Sequel

Dennis Gansel will direct a sequel, with Jason Statham returning as Arthur Bishop.^[16]

References

External links

• Official website
• The Mechanic at AllMovie
• The Mechanic at the Internet Movie Database
• The Mechanic at the TCM Movie Database
• The Mechanic at Rotten Tomatoes