 | |
List Price: $14.98 | | Label: MGM (Video & DVD)
Salesrank: 8748
Released: October 8, 2002 |
| Our Price: $7.26 |
| Used Price: $6.50 |
|
MPAA Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Media: DVD |
|
Editorial Review:
Charles Bronson delivers [in this] action-drenched (Variety) gangster thriller that delves into the dangerous minds of the underworld's most elite killers. Visually alive (Cue) and 'totally engrossing (The Hollywood Reporter), The Mechanic is a movie you won't want to miss! Arthur Bishop (Bronson) is a mob hit man who operates in a world of his own an uncompromising world where conventional rules of morality don't apply and where one wrong move could cost himhis life! He's always worked alone but, as age catches up with him, Bishop takes on a competent andruthless apprentice (Jan-Michael Vincent) and teaches him everything he knows. Together they becomean unmatchable team of globetrotting killers until the pupil's ruthlessness puts him on a collisioncourse with his teacher!
The Mechanic Reviews:
ceosr 
2009-10-23 - It is a simple movie, has good action and suspence in it without all of the bad language and sex are every turn. It is a good movie that the whole family can watch.
Exciting and often funny 70s action/buddy movie with a nice ending twist 
2009-09-29 - Two years before DEATH WISH , Bronson played a completely amoral hit-man in THE MECHANIC, a first class action/thriller that for the most part lacks any of the troublesome moral questions in the later film - but only because "morality" really isn't part of the equation for Bronson's Arthur Bishop, a high-priced "mechanic" who ends up taking on younger, cockier and too-enthusiastic Steve McKenna (Jan-Michael Vincent, less wooden than usual here) as his protégé shortly after he kills McKenna's father (the always wonderful Keenan Wynn).
The best part of this film is the opening set-up as we see Bishop calmly and methodically set up an extremely complicated hit in an apartment building in New York, staging it from across the street. He goes about the job very much as a calm man of business, and one of the neatest aspects of the film to me is that while he never really loses the facade, it's clear that in taking on young McKenna - who he has formed a bond with over a couple of social outings after the older McKenna's funeral - he has allowed a potentially fatal emotional relationship to obscure his clear vision.
The film is basically structured as a series of fairly elaborate action set pieces with the developing relationship between the older and younger assassins taking place in between. All of the action sequences are very well put together and play out in some interesting and unexpected ways; after the opening scene my favorite is probably the motorcycle race which comes a little over halfway through the film, fascinating in part because it's Bronson who takes off after the escaping victim and not the expected speed-freak Vincent.
I don't want to spoil the ending, which has one of the funnier twists I've seen in any action movie, so I'll just say that I for one never saw the last couple of scenes coming. As I mention in my review for DEATH WISH, director Michael Winner really knows how to plot a simple, linear action piece for all it's worth and without allowing too many distractions to creep in. The music, even more excellent than in the later film, sounded to me like Jerry Goldsmith in experimental-percussive Planet of the Apes mode, but in fact it is by Jerry Fielding.
Misleading to say the least. 
2008-12-29 - Judging from the title, you would expect good old Charlie to roll up his sleeves and get under the hood of a few cars. There is not one car that is worked on in the entire movie!!! Is it too much to ask that I see a silver screen icon up to his elbows in car grease? I am all for the killing scenes, but how can you have a movie called "The Mechanic" and not have the main actor at least work on a few cars in between killings. I understand that the movie was later renamed, but the damage has been done. If anyone has any old footage of Charles Bronson working on cars it would be much appreciated.
Low budget cheese...
2008-12-27 - It's a shame Charles Bronson didn't have the budget, writing, casting, and production resources that Stephen Segal, Schwartzenegger, and other great action film guys had. He was great in big budget films when he had first-rate directors and casting like "The Magnificent Seven" and "The Great Escape". But as much as I wanted to like Bronson in his own "kill the bad guys" films, they are nothing more than poor imitations of the multitude of cheap TV shows from the 1970's produced by Stephen J. Cannell. I paid the price to discover the truth. You shouldn't if you're smart...
Charles Bronson fan
2008-11-04 - I am a Charles Bronson fan so I enjoyed the DVD. It is a little dated with the 70's slang but I can dig it.
