The Mechanic Reviews

The Mechanic is one of the best action films of the 1970's. Starring Charles Bronson as meticulous hit-man Arthur Bishop, The Mechanic is a brilliant, near flawless action picture that also is a portrait into the mind of a killer. A well crafted film that not only has a lot of action, the film shows the twisted, savage side of a killer. Charles Bronson is a cold hearted killer, and he is superb in his role. What makes Charles Bronson perfect for the part of Arthur Bishop is his chiseled tough guy looks, his voice and on screen demeanor, it's really hard to picture someone else in the role. Bronson was born to play such a role. The Mechanic is a mix of action, thriller, suspense and somewhat drama. But the film mostly plays out like an action thriller. The film is a near flawless film that is one of Charles Bronson's finest films. The Mechanic is a classic of the genre. This is a fine action film that has yet to to be topped. What separates this film from most action films is that The Mechanic is not only an action, but a character study into the mind of a killer, we get an idea how a professional killer acts and and carries out his deadly tasks. Not only that, but The Mechanic gives the audience one of the most memorable of all Charles Bronson's films. A well made action film, and one of the defining films of the genre.

Despite having some of the same trappings of other, similar films, what sets this 'hit man' film apart from the others is that it is at least trying for something more, something deeper besides action and violence. And, at times, it succeeds.

This distinction is immediately noticeable during the opening sequence- 16 minutes free of dialogue that make the viewer pay attention to the details while still amping up the tension and suspense. It's a marvelous sequence, and a great way to get thigns going. I wish more films nowadays would try to strive for a bit of artistry and craft once in a while.

The rest of the film is filled with bits of philosophy (namely existentialism) and high culture. The third act does descend into rousing action, but it is used as punctuation, and is earned as a way of highlighting what the rest of the film had been building up to.

The pacing isn't snail-like, but this isn't a film for viewers who can't handle anything less than rapid cutting, fast editing, and movies that don't take the time to breathe. It's a very underrated film that has a very 70s feel to it. It deserves more attention, so you should definitely check it out.

One of the best. A true highlight of both Michael Winner's and Charles Bronson's careers. Well-paced, well-written and tightly edited all the way to the abrupt and explosive ending. I absolutely love this film.

They certainly don't know how to make movies as they used to. Charles Bronson, the original Hollywood tough guy, in probably his most haunting role, as the Mechanic, Mr. Bishop, a Hitman at the top of his trade, a fixer of accidents and problems. though he is getting on in his years, after his last job, he strikes an unlikley friendship with the target's son, whom he sees a younger, ruthless version of himself. Knowing that he is passing into old age, he decided to train a protege in his master craft, all the skills, tools and organisation to be a killer.

But, in taking on a partner, he has become a target himself by his employers.... and they will use the closest person to get to him: his new student.

Defintley a cold and calculating movie, the opening scene sets the standard as we see Bronson at work in his deadly trade. the music score really underlines the cold and brutal nature of the film, and the climax and ending is defintley an original twist and another reminder of the underworld and its cruel fates and irony it presents to those who walk that life.

A gem, a classic, its definitley a standout Bronson movie. Its good I got to watch it just before the remake hits the cinemas with Jason Statham.

Just a really cool movie worthy of Charles Bronson's name. The first sequence alone is a great stand-alone short film, followed by an interesting training storyline. While this movie's main flaw is that it's so predictable, all is forgiven because Charles Bronson's tough attitude and uncompromising behavior make for such a great character and enjoyable experience.

Charles Bronson is an assassin who carefully plans out his hits. While it is an action pic with plenty of gun fights, chases and explosions, Bronson makes you watch his ultra cool reactions to the slow burn of things going on around him. When Jan-Michael Vincent shows his interest in being shown the ropes of the assassin's trade, Bronson settles into being a mentor easily. Then the suspense is built when the young man "shape-shifts." Even in keeping an extra leery eye on his young accomplice, Bronson is always prepared.

A compelling crime drama and character study about a meticulous, highly-skilled professional hit-man named Arthur Bishop played by Charles Bronson in a superlative performance, who works alone and is the mob's most elite contract killer, he has no loyalties, no involvements, and his only relationship is a fictitious one with a role-playing prostitute, nicely played by Jill Ireland. Bishop decides to take on a arrogant and ruthless young apprentice Jan-Michael Vincent in a sold performance and teaches him everything he knows, things take a turn for the worse, the Organization that he works for does not like it at all, and now Bishop himself is a marked man. The film is unique because it shows us the mind of a hit man in fine detail, not only through his actions, but also by his methodical ways. Good action sequences, a abundance of explosions, car and motorcycle chases, hand to hand combat, and a respectable body count that should keep the action crowd happy. Fine direction by Michael Winner, excellent cinematography by Richard H. Kline and Robert Paynter, and a superb score by Jerry Fielding. an exciting entertainment. Highly Recommended.

The whole film is very shruggable and disengaging. Didn't care for any of the characters. Then the ending came along, and in trying to be clever, made absolutely no sense.

Flawless action/thriller and character study of contract killer. Charles Bronson really is the ultimate bad ass, and plays the character of a no nonsense motherfucker perfectly. No dialouge throughout the first 15 minutes really lets the viewer get into this guys meticulous, detached and remorseless mindframe perfectly and the film just doesn't miss a beat after that. Pretty much perfect in every way.

Charles Bronson and director Michael Winner made several movies together before hitting paydirt with the Death Wish films. In this Bronson plays a lone hitman who takes Jan Michael Vincent under his wing. The scenes of Bronson preparing and executing his hits are the main redeeming value, even if they are a little overly complicated. When Jan Michael shows up, the cheesy dialog goes into overdrive. It also never really establishes why Bronson's loner would give a shit about JMV, or have any interest in messing with the good thing he's got going by working with him. Note: Fred Watkins talked about the opening scenes establishing Bronson's character several times in class, but none of what he said was in the movie. Figures.

Excellent film. The first 16 minutes is completely without dialogue showing Bronson doing a job. Then it becomes a sad story about fathers and lack of them. Bronson's character seals his fate after becoming a paternal figure to Jan Michael Vincent but still remains a number one ass-kicker til the bitter end. The punk should have watched his step!

This is a brilliant, nuanced film as long as you only judge it by the time it was made and the horrid remake. As it stands, Bronson gives a great silent performance for the first third, deems to smile a few times in the second act, and gets all kick ass in the last. Director Michael Winner knows how to get the most out of old squinty eyes - having worked with him on CHATO'S LAND right before. He then goes on to work with Bronson on four more pictures, mostly the DEATH WISH series. Jan Michael Vincent barely pulls off anything in the movie, playing the whole thing like a cardboard hipster. Though the 'suicide' scene is a bit far out. Unlike the remake, there is no neat saving throw or crazy delineation between bad guys. Which may have more to do with his hair. Jason Straham is bald, while Broson makes a lot of dramatic use of his bangs here. Pretty much defines his Arthur Bishop. Gritty and grimy, I love the 1970s action pictures.

Not one of Charles Bronson's most exciting movies but I did like the twist ending. This is definitely a guy movie with exploding motorcycles, car chases and wrecks, and a sweet Mach 1 Mustang.

I grew up watching every Charles Bronson Movie, my Father liked them because he looked so much like him, & because he was a Bad Ass with a Heart.I love a Man that makes me feel protected, & Charles Bronson did that for me .

The Mechanic, along with The Eiger Sacntion, are two of the best movies to come out of the '70's and the two best thriller ever made. Stay away from The Mechanic remake. It's garbage by comparison.

From the great opening, which has no spoken dialog until around the 13 minute mark, to the wild action towards the final reel, this one is a great little film, well worth adding to the list of Bronson's 'must see' films.

Great film, give it a rental.

A solid Charles Bronson action film, it has a great dirt bike chase scene. Fast paced, interesting plot and plenty of action. Good supporting cast. Excellent editing.

Bronson as Bronson as he should be, with a little bit of quiet depth. He, by no means, was a dynamic face actor, so it is best when his character has background. And the off dynamic with Vincent works well, especially with the on-going story. It?s a nice neat package of 70s action the way it could have and should have been made consistently.

After seeing Once Upon a Time in the West, I had a hankering to see more Charles Bronson flicks. Obviously the first stop was Death Wish, and the sort of "proxy" choices I got to anyway (The Dirty Dozen, The Great Escape, The Magnificent Seven). This one caught my eye because it fit the image of "Charles Bronson movies" as I had built them in my head. I thought of him (by reputation) as sort of a 1970's Van Damme, someone who would appear on TNT's "Movies for Guys Who Like Movies" back in the 1990s, someone appreciated by the sort of person who guzzles a beer and cheers for the psychopathic cop who stomps all over civil rights to get the bad guy. Maybe a Chuck Norris? I don't know. Still, I took my mental image of him and this movie seemed exactly it--yet, I'd seen these other films of his and found that he was not at all what I had imagined. This film does not change that fact.

Arthur Bishop (Bronson) is a mechanic; he doesn't fix cars or craps tables, he fixes situations--by killing people. He wanders into a hotel and sets himself up in an otherwise untouched room, setting down a suitcase next to an open window. From it he draws a stubby telescope, which he uses to take pictures of an apartment across the street. Then we see him examining these images, tapping his fingers lightly on the images that seem to be drawing his attention. Now he makes his way into the room he was spying on, moving to the oven where he puts a compound on one of the gas lines that eats away at it, replaces tea bags, places a pudding-like substance in a book and then leaves. Clearly he's at work, and it's not long before we see the results. Soon he's back in the fancy home where he was examining his pictures, receiving a call from an old friend. That friend is Harry McKenna (Keenan Wynn), who asks Bishop to put in a good word for him with the organized crime group they both work for. Harry's son Steve (Jan-Michael Vincent) wanders through and looks curiously at Bishop while taking money coldly from his father. When Bishop orchestrates Harry's death, Steve is left alone, and curious about what Bishop does, sure it relates to his father's business. Bishop is reluctant to reveal himself until he watches Steve ignore the suicidal threats of his girlfriend Louise (Linda Ridgeway) and even lets her get so far as slitting her wrists and waiting a while before throwing her car keys to save her own life. Bishop takes Steve on as an associate, which leads them through a very messy job and a recrimination from Bishop's employer. A hit is assigned in Italy, but Bishop finds a secondary hit has already been assigned.

It's difficult to explain the appeal of Charles Bronson to the sort of people I am around most often. They're not utter snobs only interested in art films, but generally a more sparkly sort of action is necessary. This is 1970s action though, which is a very different breed from what came about in the 80s and 90s, and the new breed that arrived in the past decade. Stunts feel more authentically dangerous, because you can tell they are not so carefully orchestrated, with the only precaution likely coming down to stunt doubles and maybe extra padding, or something to that effect. Violence, of course, often comes off as a little less grisly without those "real" squibs and "realistic" fake blood that have followed (though squibs were used--often they looked a little off, as did the blood), but that has never bothered me too much anyway. That difference in stunts though adds something; in the 80s and 90s it seemed like stunts were obviously contrived. They continued to be entertaining and thrilling, but were obviously not natural occurrences. Most recently, a naturalistic tone has been returned to them, but now it's just the mark of even more careful orchestration. It was sort of an excess previously, with images of gigantic cranes with wire riggings and fire trucks and engines standing by, gigantic trampolines and air cushions and the like all over the place, where now it seems those things are carefully hidden, and perhaps narrowed down to only the relevant elements for each stunt. But in the 70s, boy, it looks like they said, "Well, this ought to be safe if we use a professional and have a soft crash at the end!" It makes things seem loose and dirty, and more real for it. Clearly the events and the essential run of the stunts is pre-determined, but it seems less likely that they just set a car on a guided track and pulled it into a wall and more likely that they just drove the bloody thing, or dropped a brick on its gas pedal and let it go.

Michael Winner (who also directed Death Wish) did this one with Bronson and seems to have a very similar mentality to film itself. Dialogue and performance of it seem to be a very minor concern to him, with much of it actually sounding like it was recorded in ADR rather than live, and little of it sounding natural. But he draws the focus away from that and into the events and the physicality of characters. If you read the dialogue, it doesn't seem quite so silly-sounding, yet at the same time as it does end up sounding that silly, the silliness is muted by the way Bronson and Vincent play it and the way Winner directs it. Bronson has never been one to overstate a line (barring possibly his response to the rebellious children in The Magnificent Seven), so he just sort of rolls almost every line out of his mouth sounding like the last one. It's essentially flat, but never toneless or dead despite this. Something about his look, the way he carries himself and moves, manages to overcome that inattention to dialogue (with Winner clearly caring little for it either) without damaging the story in the process. It doesn't become an issue of a film you watch to see Bronson or stunts or violence or gags or effects, but one you watch because it has Bronson, and then find pretty engaging anyway. It's a curious style of film-making, and one that is purely instinctual. This is why there is difficulty in explaining the appeal: you either like Bronson or you don't. It's not that he's an amazing actor, nor even that he's as macho as the beer-guzzling variety of fan likes to think. The proper term would be closer to "bad ass," because he's silent in his strength, even when he's running with a shotgun and taking out criminals. I've talked about this kind of actor before--actors who aren't strong, but aren't bad, and simply have this screen presence that makes their films enjoyable anyway (unless the film itself is simply awful). Bronson is easily one of those souls, and that and Winner's measured but loose direction make for a hell of a fun film.

The Mechanic has been a cult classic for years but it was only recently I got around to viewing it in full. For what its worth, Michael Winner knew how to capture the dark side of Bronson better than any of the directors he worked with except maybe Sergio Leone. The Mechanic is no different and serves as a nice counterpart film to Death Wish.

I don't know exactly why this film works. Obviously the lead actor in a role he seemed to be born for: the quiet, steely glared killer who speaks only in short sentences. For me, the story was routine but the ending made me grin ear to ear. Not to give anything away but it was classic.