Please pray for Charlie Sheen; it's really fucking tough to be super-fucking-rich and have top-shelf pussy delivered to your house every day like fuckin' Domino's Pizza. The citizens of Egypt are a bunch of pussies who don't know a fucking thing about having it tough, unless they walked in Sheen's designer Italian shoes. Until then, those bitch-asses will only walk like an Egyptian, not like the fuckin' Ma-Sheen.
Anyway, I went to see The Mechanic last night, which I didn't even know was coming out this weekend, but there you go. A friend texted me to join him and his buddy, so I did, hoping to see some Statham bringing down serious fuckin' ownage on a motherfucker, because Jason Statham is pretty dependable when you want to see someone bringing the pain these days. His co-star is Ben Foster, who is pretty dependable when you want to see an ultra-intense actor who looks like he needs a bath -- fuck that -- he needs a shower, because baths aren't that fuckin' clean, you know.
This is a remake of a movie starring Muthafuckin' Charlie Bronson and I guess the producers who decided to do this shit over thought it was White Boy Day, and you know what? It kinda was White Boy Day when they commissioned a motherfucker to adapt a new version of that 70's shit, because honestly, it wasn't that great of a fuckin' movie, in my most humble of humble opinions. In case you don't know the story of either version, it goes like this: a "mechanic" is a fuckin' assassin who generally specializes in making the hits look like accidents or like it was the work of someone else. Arthur Bishop is the name of the title mechanic in both flicks, played by Bronson & Statham. In both movies, Bishop takes on a young protégé and mentors the dude in the killing arts; in both movies, the young protégé also happen to be the son of Bishop's recently-deceased mentor.
As I said in the last paragraph, I didn't think the original was any great shakes. The Mechanic falls under the Ocean's 11 category of movies that are absolutely acceptable to remake because the original wasn't anything to write home about -- there's more potential to improve, less potential to fuck it up. But yeah, the 70's version was a decent flick that had its moments (and a great ending), but overall what that flick had going for it was that it's never not awesome to see Charles Bronson doing his thing -- except he wasn't really doing his thing in The Mechanic, he wasn't going around owning people, he's just turning their fuckin' stoves on and letting the gas fill the apartment so it can explode later. And for the first half of this movie, that's kinda what Statham is reduced to, for the most part, accident-ing his targets.
I say "for the most part" because I think the filmmakers felt they needed to beef up the action a tad for today's audience, so now Statham will occasionally get more hand-to-hand in his business, like wrapping his belt around a motherfuckers neck and strangling him to death with it, then hanging him with it in front of a laptop filled with porn. That's kinda fucked up and scary, I gotta admit; Statham made it look like the dude went past the limit doing the ol' autoerotic asphyxiation and now everyone who knows the recently deceased is gonna think that's how he really died, and that's what he was really into. Fuck, that must be what David Carradine's family must feel like, shit, maybe a fuckin' Mechanic took his ass out for whatever reason. Fuck, I really hope Mechanics don't exist, and if they do, I hope I don't do anything to incur the wrath of a Mechanic's employer, lest I find myself with a belt around my neck and my pants around my ankles and a naked chick on my computer screen. If I'm going to die that way, it'll be from my own shitty timing and inability to unloop the belt, not because Jason Statham made it look that way.
If this updated version is any indication, then Carradine must've been into some fucked up shit when a Mechanic got to him, because most of the targets in this movie are pretty despicable guys in a The World's Better Off kinda way. I don't remember the Bronson version ever explaining who the targets were and what they did to get got, they just get got and for all we know they could've been guys who deserved it or guys who were unfortunate enough to see/know some shit they shouldn't have fuckin' seen/known. In the Statham joint, they're guilty of being pieces-of-shit like drug kingpins, arms dealers, and cult leaders with a thing for young girls. I don't know, I guess it's a whole having-a-likable-character thing they want to add to this version, although to my friends who had never seen the original, Bishop still came off as a cold-blooded sociopath. So I guess you can say that while Bronson had ice water in his veins, Statham's blood is slightly chilled.
Bronson's Bishop eventually started getting dizzy spells and shit, took to medicating in-between glasses of wine. It's never spelled out, but I figured the job was getting to him and that's why he was getting all fucked up. In this version, it's more out there for the audience to see, it's a lot easier to gather that the life is probably getting to Statham's Bishop, because they have scenes of him looking all sad and shit while sitting on his expensive couch in his expensive house, or constantly visiting a yacht that's for sale and playing with the idea of buying the fuckin' thing and sailing off into a new life or whatever the fuck these hired assassins do when they don't want to be hired assassins anymore.
That word -- assassin -- is an awesome word, because it reminded me of the time I once had this small poster for the Stallone/Banderas flick Assassins, and one day I was bored and blacked out the first 3 letters and the last 3 letters of the title, put the poster up, and never got tired of the reactions of people who saw the poster, confused that there was a Stallone/Banderas film called Ass and that Julianne Moore would sully her respectable body of work by appearing in such a movie. What I'm trying to say is that Mike Judge stole my shit. He better watch his fuckin' back -- I got to Brittany Murphy, I can get to him. Too soon?
So Bronson is the better Mechanic, but as far as who does a better job as the young protégé, it's a tie between Ben Foster and Jan-Michael Vincent; Foster is basically a fuck-up prone to violence, while Vincent's version of the character seemed more of a fucked-up dude psychologically who took to mechanic-work like the proverbial duck to water -- that was more fun to observe. Jan-Michael Vincent only loses to Foster in that his character looked more like some rich kid while Foster looks a lot more rough around the edges, and as I mentioned before, he probably smells a little too. Funny thing is that in real life, Vincent is probably All Man who probably starts every morning with a bottle of Jack Daniels and a raw steak, while I wouldn't be surprised if Foster is one of those tofu/soy-eating motherfuckers. That sounds like something Dolemite would say: "You born insecure, tofu-soy-eating muthaFUCKA!" Rest In Peace, Dolemite -- I'll mourn ya till I join ya.
The first half is kinda dull, really; I'll be honest, maybe staged accidents just don't really do it for me, because that was kinda my issue with the original. The remake pretty much follows the main plot points of the original, which doesn't really help in this flick's favor, but halfway through, the filmmakers start bringing in more ownage into the proceedings and that slightly improved it and made it a little more fun to watch. Eventually, motherfuckers start getting blasted in the kneecaps and head and it would be even cooler to watch if it wasn't so obvious that they were using Stallone's digital blood leftovers from his last 2 movies for these scenes.
I forgive Stallone for that shit because he overwhelms you with so much mayhem and will still occasionally use a real blood squib every once in a while, but with this one, all I could imagine was a film crew happy to go home earlier that day because they didn't need to set up a fake headshot for that scene, they just had the stunt man jerk his head back and fall down and knew they could make that shit "cooler" in post. I shouldn't be thinking that, I should be all FUCK YEAH BRING THE FUCKIN' PAIN, BABY! while watching motherfuckers getting owned in action movies. At least make that shit look more real or something, I don't know, what do I know?
There's this one scene where Foster is going to start his first assignment and is told by Statham to buy a small chihuahua and take it with him every morning to a local cafe, and later he finds out it's because his target is this 6'7 300 lb. Hard Motherfucker who also happens to be gay and I was like Wait A Minute because I'm wondering if somehow having a little faggy dog = I Like The Cock. That's kinda fucked up that the filmmakers resorted to that kind of visual storytelling, like a gay dude can't be into rottweilers or something, they gotta be all about Beverly Hills Chihuahua.
But at least the target isn't some stereotype of a lisping prancer; he could probably take out 10 straight dudes without batting an eye -- you don't want to fuck with this dude, and if you're Ben Foster's character, you just don't want to be fucked *by* this dude. Seriously, I see them standing together and think, Man, That Would Fuckin' Hurt. You're using the entire tube of K-Y, is what I'm saying. I'm reminded of this one guy I knew and I would still know if it wasn't for the fact that he doesn't know how to pick up a phone. Anyway, this guy, he towers over his girlfriend and I imagine that those two going 69 on each other would be a futile effort. I want to say that True Love is knowing you can't do it but you try anyway, but what would I know about love, unless it's love of pizza or love of gold (makes the world go around, you know)?
Again, I saw this because I was invited to see it, otherwise I'd have waited for the DVD or Blu-ray and honestly, I feel I'd have enjoyed this more had I waited. Overall, it's even with the original; this version has better action and pace but the original had stronger characters and a better lead. That's what I think, anyway.
The director of the original was Michael Winner, who is a winner to me because he's got a second career going nowadays as an asshole who goes around being an asshole about other people's food. He's either the Simon Cowell of food critics or Simon Cowell is the Michael Winner of record executives, I'm not sure, all I know is that Simon Cowell did not direct Death Wish 3, therefore fuck that born-with-a-silver-spoon piece-of-shit. Michael Winner, on the other hand, did direct Death Wish 3 and that means he is Awesome For Life in my book and if he ever wanted to come to my place, eat my spaghetti carbonara and then call it garbage, he is welcome to do so and I will be happy about it. The director of the remake is Simon West, who did not direct Death Wish 3, but did direct Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, so fuck that guy. If he ate my food and critiqued it afterwards, I'd punch him in his fuckin' limey face and tell him to get the fuck out of my house.
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