Mechanic: Resurrection opens with former assassin Bishop (Jason Statham) enjoying his retirements in Brazil. Then, while out one day, he is approached by someone looking to hire him to kill three men. He manages to escape and run away to Thailand. There, he meets Gina (Jessica Alba), who is being blackmailed by the same people looking to hire Bishop. The bad guys end up getting their clutches on Gina, and they use her as leverage against Bishop. The former hitman is forced to come out of retirement to perform three seemingly impossible assassinations. While working these jobs, Bishop tries to figure out a way to outwit his true foes.
The plot is reliant on a lot of bizarre logic. In order to get this plot in motion, the movie contrives a character that Bishop can fall in love with, so that he actually has something to lose. And it doesn't just introduce this character as someone he meets. She is someone sent specifically to charm the assassin, but genuinely falls for him, too. After all that clunky setup, she spends most of the film as an idle captive, just another in a long line of female characters in action movies that are put into peril to give the main male protagonist a reason to do all the things he's doing.
It's a whole lot of trouble for very little payoff. The film ends up taking too long to get to the stuff it really wants to do. Like the first film, this is all just about putting together these elaborate assassination sequences. Again, the film has to function on very clunky reasoning here. Bishop is told repeatedly that his kills have to look like accidents, but it isn't entirely clear why, and the final results look pretty dubious anyway. But there is some pleasure derived from watching this professional go about his business, meticulously studying his target and the environment in order to find inventive ways of getting to them.
It might have all worked better if the film wasn't burdened with being a sequel. A lot of the film's illogic seems to stem from the need to address the elements of the original films. If this was just a new property, it might have been able to just barrel headlong into the fun stuff, without having to perform the gymnastics necessary to get the main character to that place. The value of the Mechanic title is questionable at best, and taking it on slows this film down to an unacceptable degree.
Taken as nothing more than a succession of action sequences, the movie is okay, but not especially inspired. Its occasional use of visual effects makes the production look chintzy. And the choppy editing doesn't help matters any. Jason Statham is still one of the best action heroes out there, though. The best parts of this movie have the actor front and center, struggling his way out of peril. There's a shot of him swimming with his hands bound that is seriously cool. The raw physicality of the lead star lends a movie some credibility, and it elevates everything else.
Mechanic: Resurrection is a sequel that nobody asked for. The first movie was fun and all, but it hardly necessitated a continuation. And this film suffers because of the work it needed to do to get the main character where he needs to be. But this is another case where commerce seems to have trumped creativity. There is always value in seeing Jason Statham hurt people, but it tends to work better when a film can just get to that straight away. This film is angling for some dubious name recognition, and it suffers because of it.
My Rating:
