The Mechanic (2011 film)

The Mechanic is a 2011 American action thriller film directed by Simon West, starring Jason Statham, Ben Foster, Tony Goldwyn, Donald Sutherland, James Logan, Mini Andén, Jeff Chase, and Christa Campbell. Written by Lewis John Carlino and Richard Wenk, it is a remake of the 1972 film of the same name. Statham stars as Arthur Bishop, a professional assassin who specializes in making his hits look like accidents, suicides and petty criminals' acts.

It was released in the U.S. and Canada on January 28, 2011 where it was praised for its action sequences and Statham's performance. A sequel, Mechanic: Resurrection, was released on August 26, 2016.

Plot
Hitman Arthur Bishop sneaks into the home of a Colombian cartel boss and drowns him in his own pool. Upon returning home to Louisiana, he meets with his friend and mentor Harry McKenna.

Bishop is then assigned by his employer Dean to kill Harry. Dean tells Bishop about a failed mission in South Africa, in which several assassins were killed, the details of which are known only to Dean and Harry. Reluctantly, Bishop kills Harry and makes it look like a carjacking. At Harry's funeral, Bishop encounters Harry's son Steve, whom he later stops from killing a would-be carjacker in rage.

Steve asks Bishop to train him as a hitman; he's instructed to take a chihuahua to a coffee shop each day at the same time, catching the attention of his would-be target, the assassin Burke. As Steve settles into a routine, Bishop takes him to observe a contract killing. Burke eventually invites Steve for drinks.

Ignoring Bishop's instruction to overdose Burke with Rohypnol, Steve goes with him to his apartment. When Burke begins to undress, he attempts to strangle the much larger man with a belt, imitating Bishop. He fights back, and Steve barely manages to kill him after a lengthy fight. Dean expresses disapproval of Bishop's usage of Steve, which violated the rules of contract arrangement.

Bishop's next target is cult leader Andrew Vaughn, whom Steve suggests they inject with adrenaline to simulate a heart attack, for which the paramedics would administer a fatal dose of epinephrine. While Bishop and Steve are preparing for the hit, Vaughn's doctor arrives and administers an IV of ketamine, which would inhibit the adrenaline's effects. The two decide to suffocate Vaughn instead.

After killing Vaughn, they are discovered by the guards so shoot their way out, then fly home separately. At the airport, Bishop finds a hitman who was supposed to be killed in the mission that Harry allegedly sold out. The hitman reveals Dean engineered the failed mission to cover up his own shady dealings. Bishop realizes Dean framed Harry and was tricked into killing him.

After dispatching Dean's henchmen who ambush him, Bishop learns Steve has also been ambushed at the safehouse. Steve kills his attackers, finds his father's gun and realizes Bishop killed him. Bishop and Steve ambush and kill Dean. When they stop for gas, Steve blows up the truck with Bishop seemingly still inside.

Steve returns to Bishop's and does two things Bishop told him not to: He plays a record on the turntable and takes Bishop's 1966 Jaguar E-Type. As he drives away, Steve sees a note on the passenger seat; it reads: "Steve, If you're reading this, you're dead. (Bishop)" Steve gives one last laugh before the car explodes, killing him. Another explosion destroys Bishop's safehouse.

Security footage at the gas station reveals that Bishop had escaped from the truck before the explosion. He gets into a spare truck 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
 * John McConnell as Andrew Vaughn
 * Mini Andén as Sarah
 * Stuart Greer as Ralph
 * Christa Campbell as Kelly
 * Lance E. Nichols as Henry
 * J.D. Evermore as Gun Runner
 * David Leitch as Sebastian
 * Mark Nutter as John Finch, Dean's Bodyguard
 * Lara Grice as Mrs. Finch
 * Ada Michelle Loridans as Finch's Daughter
 * Katarzyna Wolejnio as Maria
 * James Logan as Jorge Lara
 * Eddie J. Fernandez as Lara's Guard
 * Joshua Bridgewater as Raymond, The Carjacker
 * Choop as Arthur The Dog

Development
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.)

Casting
Director Simon West and Jason Statham were announced as part of the project three months later. Ben Foster and Donald Sutherland were cast alongside Statham in October 2009.

Filming
Filming began in New Orleans, Louisiana on October 14 and lasted for nine weeks. Filming locations included St. Tammany Parish, the World Trade Center in downtown New Orleans and the Algiers Seafood Market.

Soundtrack
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, by MIM Records.
 * "Better Off Dead" by Linnzi Zaorski, herself playing the "Jazz Club Singer".

Theatrical
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. In the United Kingdom, the distribution rights were sold to Lionsgate.

TV advertisement ban
In June 2011 the UK's Advertising Standards Authority banned an advertisement for the film from being broadcast on British television. The ban followed complaints from 13 viewers regarding a screening of the advert during the teen show Glee. In its ruling, the authority found that although the advert was shown post-watershed, it was likely that a large number of viewers under the age of 16 would have been watching Glee at the time, and criticized the "stream of violent imagery" portrayed in the advert.

Box office
The film grossed $11.4 million on its opening weekend in the U.S. and Canada. It ended with a North American gross of $29.1 million and $47.2 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $76.3 million.

Critical response
The Mechanic received mixed reviews from critics. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gives the film an approval rating of 53%, based on 156 reviews, with a rating average of 5.6/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Jason Statham and Ben Foster turn in enjoyable performances, but this superficial remake betrays them with mind-numbing violence and action thriller cliches." On Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score to reviews from mainstream critics, the film received an average score of 49 out of 100, based on 35 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".

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."

Sequel
Dennis Gansel directed a sequel, with Jason Statham returning as Arthur Bishop.