Jason Statham is nothing if not consistent. Unlike actors all concerned with showing their range and branching out, Statham can be relied upon to play more or less the same guy in every movie: a good guy at the core who has no problem with ultraviolence. In The Mechanic, a remake of 1972’s Charles Bronson movie, he’s a hit man who takes on a protégé (Ben Foster) to revenge the death of Donald Sutherland, the protégé’s father and Statham’s pal. Statham and Foster proceed to blow up and/or kill everything in sight. We don’t know if it’s his proximity to the imperturbably badass Statham and big guns, or his almost halolike blondness, but Foster cuts such a slim silhouette, he’s not quite believable as a physically imposing thug (though he has been way believable as an unhinged one). Maybe he should leave Jason Statham–ing to to Jason Statham? Trailer high point: the incidental gravelly voice-off between Statham and Sutherland in their shared scene.
