Box Office Review - The Mechanic

When will rich people and large companies learn. If your personal hitman is described as being a one man killing machine, or the best of the best, don't double cross him. Also, don't be surprised when your best security teams are killed by said hitman. Thankfully the company in The Mechanic hasn't learned these lessons and as a result Jason Statham and Ben Foster get to cause a whole lot of mayhem and destruction.

Jason Statham is known as The Mechanic a hired killer so good that he can make any death seem like an accident. After a series of events Ben Foster ends up under his tutelage and he trains him to become a killer. Statham finds out that the company he works for has double crossed him. Then a bunch of people get killed.

Not much in the story department that hasn't been seen before. The performances however are solid. Jason Statham does what he always does and never shows emotion. This is to be expected. Ben Foster on the other hand is an actor seemingly capable of doing anything and he brings a lot of soul to the film. The pairing of a character who is emotional and a character without emotion works well for the film.

What doesn't work well for the film is the horrible and movie ruining ending. “Spoilers” ........ I was hoping that this 2011 version of The Mechanic would switch up the ending used in the original Charles Bronson film. It works extremely well in the context of the original story, but in the remake I knew that the different set-up wouldn't work with the old ending. In the Bronson version he is betrayed by his protege and killed. When his protege arrives back at their shared home, it turns out Bronson gets the last laugh and the film ends with a fireball. Now in the 2011 version the ending is similar except modified by the studio for a happy ending. In the film Foster blows up Statham's truck, goes back to their home and dies a fiery death. Then via the use of a security camera we see that Statham actually rolled away a second before the explosion. If the film was set up like the original I would have been fine with the fact that Statham lives, but it doesn't. The reason that Foster's character kills Statham is because he killed his Dad, a job in which Statham's character is shown as feeling guilty for doing. Basically he deserves to die and Foster deserves to live. If that was how the movie ended I would have really enjoyed the film. Seeing as Foster is the one killed and Statham lives, makes the scenes of Statham starring at the picture of Foster's father and feeling guilty have absolutely no reason for being in the film. In fact if Statham really didn't feel guilty than he would have never trained Foster in the first place.

You shouldn't judge a movie by it's ending, but in this case the ending destroys any good graces I had for the film.

A Banana Peel