In 1972, Charles Bronson wasn’t quite the worldwide superstar he would become after 1974’s Death Wish but he was pretty close. Close enough that he could be top-billed in medium-budgeted thrillers like The Mechanic.
The Mechanic presents the stoic, craggy-faced, mustachioed actor as a freelance hitman who listens to classical music, smokes a pipe, and always does extensive research into his intended victims before he strikes. When he does finally take them out, he tries to always make it look like some type of accident.
We see him at work with one “assignment,” following him through taking surveillance photographs (reminiscent of Bronson’s 1950s TV series, Man With a Camera), planning on a large board, and eventually setting up an elaborate scheme to do the work remotely, while he watched, with no one the wiser.
Now that we know who our protagonist is, the actual plot begins. The great character actor Keenan Wynn plays an old school mobbed up guy who is currently on the outs with the boys. He calls in his old partner and friend’s son, Bronson, to try to put in a good word for him. Although only five years apart in age in real life, he talks like he’s known Bronson since he was a child.
Sadly, it’s too late, and Bronson’s next assigned hit is on his old friend. He carries it out according to his usual methods. At the funeral, perhaps out of guilt, he ends up bonding with his victim’s son, played by Jan-Michael Vincent. Eventually, he takes on the young man as an eager apprentice, but their first job together is a bit of a shambles and Bronson’s “handler” wants the new partnership ended, permanently. Unfortunately, he has also contracted Vincent to take out Bronson! First, though, they have an expedited hit they have to make in Naples, Italy.
There are no good guys in this picture. In the long run, you’re led to root for Charlie just because he seems to have some sense of decorum and standards. Like Cary Grant back in the day, Charles Bronson often played variations on the persona he had created of “Charles Bronson.” He was quite a good actor when he wanted to be (Hard Times, The Great Escape, The Valachi Papers, Death Wish) but he became popular enough that he didn’t need to work that hard at success.
Bronson’s real-life wife Jill Ireland is here, as she also was in something like 16 of his starring vehicles. She’s good, as always, but it’s only for one throwaway scene leading up to a punchline. What a waste.
Jan-Michael Vincent could have been a big star but never quite made it. By all accounts, he had a rough life and many personal demons but on screen, he was handsome, charming, and youthful well past his actual youth. He first came to my notice in the Saturday morning TV series Danger Island in the late ‘60s. He really stood out though, in a hard-hitting TV movie called Tribes. Disney starred him as The World’s Greatest Athlete and he appeared in a number of low-budget movies before returning to television in the 1980s in Airwolf, opposite Ernest Borgnine and a super helicopter.
The only other recognizable cast member in The Mechanic is Frank de Kova. De Kova often played Indians in westerns or gangsters in films or on TV but he was perhaps best known as the silly and conniving Chief Wild Eagle on TV’s F Troop. Here, he plays it straight as Bronson’s mob contact.
There’s a lengthy car chase, a motorcycle chase with an obvious helmeted stuntman replacing Bronson, and a martial arts exhibition that pre-dated the 1970s martial arts craze by nearly a year. Director Michael Winner is, as always, serviceable but never particularly interesting. There’s an atmospheric music score by Jerry Fielding, and some cinematography that might be described as pretentious for a straightforward action film.
I had seen The Mechanic before, but remembered virtually nothing of it. There’s not that much to remember. It’s like candy. Tastes good while you’re eating it but you won’t remember it tomorrow. Still, today, I enjoyed The Mechanic. For what it is, it’s a good film.
Extras include multiple commentaries, archival interview with screenwriter Lewis John Carlino, and trailer.
Booksteve recommends.
