Jason Statham bares his six-pack before speaking his first line in this humorless, efficient remake of the 1972 Charles Bronson hitman movie. Directed by Con Air auteur Simon West, The Mechanic is all business: the solitary assassin and his mentor (Donald Sutherland), the latter’s ne’er-do-well son (Ben Foster), double-crossing, payback, and guns, guns, guns. Where Bronson, without the benefit of computers or miniature video cameras, had the blue-collar gravitas of working—well, killing—with his hands, Statham conveys serene metrosexual assurance.
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