“Good judgment comes from experience and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.”

Arthur Bishop

The ingredients to establishing a Jason Statham franchise are all present: a euphemistic job title, terse dialogue, a convoluted plot of double-crossing criminals, and explosive consequences. I was hoping, then, that this remake of the 1972 Charles Bronson movie would deliver something like The Transporter. Statham excels at playing the straight man — in this case the kind of Hollywood-written hitman who studies actuarial tables for tips on undetectable murder — but The Mechanic gives him little to play off that doesn’t feel forced. Training the hotheaded son of his former mentor never makes sense for such a meticulously prepared individual, and he fails to recognise a painfully obvious double-cross because it would cut the film short by an hour. This would be forgivable were the pace of action high enough to prevent us noticing, but The Mechanic moves surprisingly slowly with little creativity on display, just smaller versions of familiar stunts.

5/10