Man on Film: Contraband

If we are being honest, Contraband is your typical January action release. Realistically, it is not good enough nor does it have the cachet to warrant a more favorable release date for reaching a broader audience. Its lack of signature action set pieces or special effects-heavy sequences make for a pretty straightforward smuggling caper flick.

This isn't to say Contraband is awful. It is mediocre. To quote, Stu from the "Action Packed Heist" episode of The Life and Times of Tim,

I'm a Wahlberg guy.

With Kate Beckinsale in tow, it isn't hard to understand why Wahlberg's character would be willing to get back into the game to save her brother. Much like last fall's Ides of March and its casting of Philip Seymour Hoffman and Paul Giamatti in the same film, Contraband becomes perhaps the only movie to have both Ben Foster and Giovanni Ribisi, who must have grown sick of auditioning for the same roles for the past ten years or so. Hell, my interest was even piqued when I saw that Baltasar Kormakur had directed the film. Having quite liked his debut film 101 Reykjavik and his follow-up The Sea, his name had fallen off my radar but seeing it in the opening credits had me hopeful.

Unfortunately the film never grabs the audience. Perhaps some of that was owing to the fucking four-year-old whose parents let her hop around in the aisle whilst talking*, but the plot kind of plods around, has some minor stuff happen, does not let the audience in on the plan (in an interesting way, of course), and has just enough turns to make it look like they tried.

*Sorry, but if you have a four-year-old, you kind of lost your right to take your kid who won't sit still or be quiet to a Rated-R movie. You chose to have the kid. Fucking deal with it. Don't make your kid everyone else's problem. 

All in all, Contraband was a milquetoast action flick.

Instead of watching that trailer, though, you could watch this (I assure you, if I could change the music, I would)...

Man on Film: The Mechanic

I cannot say that I go to remakes often, especially when they are as faithful to the original source material as I was expecting the remake of the Charles Bronson star-vehicle The Mechanic to be. Sure, I saw The A-Team and The Karate Kid (and Season of the Witch) last year, but usually it has a wrinkle added or is really an re-imagining of an earlier work--often a television series--for the screen. While the Michael Winner directed original may not have the wide viewership of the myriad other films that get remade every year, I love the original.

As a lover of The Mechanic in its first incarnation, I can say that I liked the remake for the most part. I don't necessarily believe that Michael Winner is an untouchable director. The first three Death Wish movies are very, very good, but his resume is otherwise rather thin on quality. The original is especially bold in that there is no dialogue for the first 16 minutes of the film, as Bronson's Arthur Bishop prepares for and carries out a hit. Simon West certainly pays homage to this intro sans dialogue, but it's the 21st Century. People are neither as intelligent nor as patient as they were in 1972. The thought is there, nonetheless.

I think most of the people who frequent this blog would share my feelings regarding both Bronson and Jason Statham. They are both uniquely awesome, and they each have a je ne sais quoi that sets them apart from their action star contemporaries. While each one is very different from one another, there is an intrinsic likability to each actor that makes the casting of the lead a push.

Where the remake has a leg up on the original is in the casting of the protege. In the original, we are stuck watching Jan-Michael Vincent do his best approximation of what he thinks acting might be. If you remember Airwolf at all, you should know what I'm talking about. The remake throws one of the best unsung character actors out there into the role of Steve McKenna in the form of Ben Foster. Just as he has everywhere from Freaks and Geeks to 3:10 to Yuma, Foster owns his role. It really is getting to the point that I'll watch almost any new movie with Ben Foster in it. That is a whole helluva lot more than you could ever have said about Mr. Vincent.

Now the main difference between the remake and the original is style. Simon West's update is a product of its time. The action sequences are a bit grander. The fight choreography a lot more visceral. It is what you want from a Jason Statham star-vehicle. Granted, he isn't as much a smart-ass, but I think it is easy to generally pretty damned easy root for him. Despite his British-ness, he exudes a working class aura that enables even the most ethnocentric Americans to get behind him. These are all things that The Mechanic has going for it.

And then there are the deaths. One of my favorite things about action movies is the ingenuity the film's crew takes in offing the bad guys. One of my favorite deaths ever was when an out-of-bullets Martin Blank offs his rival, Grocer, with a TV set in Grosse Pointe Blank. It's hilarious, and there is the added touch of his dead legs twitching from the left over electrical current* in the TV. The Mechanic has one in particular where I very audibly guffawed and couldn't stop laughing at its audacity. No, it isn't Rambo, but it delivers enough that you can't help but smiling coming out of the film... at least if you are as demented as I am.

*Or at least that's what my scientifically challenged mind rationalized the twitching to have resulted from.

The imperative question here (and really with any film) is did it succeed at accomplishing what it set out to do? While staying faithful to the source material, Simon West's vision of The Mechanic managed to entertain while rectifying the largest shortcoming of the original by trading out the dull Jan-Michael Vincent for the electric Ben Foster--and there was nudity. Is it high art? Of course not. If you go to movies as much as I do, this is fun if not entirely memorable action fare. I like Jason Statham, and if you buy into him, you're more than likely going to like it, too.

The only thing that could have been done different would have been--as Chad posited when we walked out of the movie--if Steve McKenna had lulled his first target into a false sense of security by going all the way with him first and then taking care of business. That would have been a weird-ass turn, and I'd have been all for it.

Man on Film: The Trailer for The Mechanic Remake is Up

For those of you who are not familiar with the source material--quasi-trailer that doesn't do the film justice here:

--the original film, The Mechanic, follows a hitman (played by Charles Bronson) as he mentors a young protege who seeks an education in the art of contract killing.  The 1972 film is great, starting things off with a miraculously compelling 19 minutes of film featuring no dialogue whatsoever.  Directed by Michael Winner, who seemed to only work with Charles Bronson, The Mechanic really only has one shortcoming, the leaden Jan-Michael Vincent.

Now, Sylvester Stallone had wanted to do this remake for years, but I have to say that I'm just as excited to see what the director of what is inarguably the most important movie of the 1990s (Con Air, of course) will do with this project.  With Simon West at the helm and the immensely likable Jason Statham as its star, the only potential hitch would have been in the casting of Jan-Michael Vincent's role.  Ben Foster?  Sign me up.  In addition to seeming legitimately insane, Ben Foster has strung together a list of stand-out supporting turns in 3:10 to Yuma, 30 Days of Night, Hostage, Six Feet Under, and X-Men: The Last Stand (an altogether abysmal movie).  One could easily presume that he was great in both Pandorum and The Messenger, but I've not seen either film yet. 

Regardless, The (new) Mechanic looks intriguing enough for me.  Moreover, it makes me want to go back and watch the original.  Until its release, there is one vital question that the movie-going public will be losing sleep over:  Will there be a handball scene in this one?

At least Airwolf is nowhere to be seen...