I hadn’t seen this for a long time, but rememberd it was a hit man action piece (a ‘mechanic’ being slang for a professional mob hitter) starring Charles Bronson and Jan Michael Vincent, when the latter was still an up and comer.
Good ’70s action films are the bee’s knees. The height of the genre, really, like the ’50s were for sci-fi films. Sadly, The Mechanic didn’t live up to my expectations. The set-up is as basic as possible. Bronson is Bishop, the ultra meticulous and expert mob assassin who specializes in hits that seem to be accidents or natural occurances.
We see him methodically setting up a hit in the film’s initial set-piece, taking great care and exhibiting endless patience as he waits for the proper moment. Good stuff, except that the details of his plan are so completely, ludicrously baroque that the scene becomes almost comical. On the other hand, like a lot of action films of the ’70s, the city scenes really capture an authentic urban feel.
Anyway, we see then Bishop execute a second assignment, while getting personal scenes about his sterile life that make us realize what makes him tick. Because, you know, the ’70s. Bronson’s wife and constant co-star inevitably shows up at one point as his lover. In the end, (spoiler, I guess) we learn Bishop has daddy issues. Wow. What keen insight into the human soul.
Anyway, a hip (he says stuff like “far out!” a lot), early Don Johnson-esque Vincent shows up soon and becomes Bishop’s apprentice. Yep, Bronson’s The Pro, and Vincent’s The Kid. Then stuff happens, and then we get to the end of the movie, which is actually the most memorable thing about the film.
I constantly chastize today’s films for being longer than they need to be; ‘efficient’ is one of my great compliments to a film. Even so, this one is less efficient than skimpy. It’s choppy, like it started out as a longer film and then they cut a lot of stuff out. I don’t think that was the case, but that’s how I found it. Even so, Vincent’s apprenticeship moves along a bit too quickly to seem entirely credible. The film’s pretentions to ‘saying something’ are half-hearted at best, although there is some camp value from hair and clothes and such, as is usual from films from this period.
It should be noted that despite the ’70s being the heyday of the action film, and Bronson one of the genre’s biggest stars, the majority of his films from this period are lackluster efforts. He began the decade in Europe, grinding out flicks there, and hit his mark and returned to Hollywood to become a pretty big star.
Still, titles like Stone Killer, St. Ives, Telefon, Breakout and this don’t exactly inspire a ton of gushing admiration these days. Bronson did make a few memorable films during that decade, including the prototypical vigilante flick Death Wish (directed by Michael Winner, who helmed The Mechanic as well); as well as one really, really good film, Walter Hill’s Hard Times. This is rather more representative of his work from the period, though.
So…it’s OK. Not good, certainly, but OK. A servicable time-waster, although you can frankly find better and much better stuff without overmuch effort.
Seriously, though, stick with this:
