3.0
out of 100
Metascore®Mixed or average reviews Based on a weighted average of all critic review scores.
A sample of reviews from critics across the country.
Adequate light entertainment for those who enjoy thrillers, but it is uneven and the underwhelming ending will disappoint those who enjoyed the delicious irony served up by its predecessor.
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Brisk, brutal and unconcerned with collateral damage, The Mechanic doesn't pave much of anything new in the assassin-for-hire genre. But when it kills, it does so with style.
As it is, The Mechanic is ham-fisted pulp, like Robert Rodriguez's "Machete" taking itself seriously.
In essence, this one is the equivalent of the "B" movies that flourished during the original's era -- and it proves middling, and occasionally muddled, on almost every level.
An intriguing plot is established, a new character is brought on with a complex set of problems, and then all the groundwork disintegrates into the usual hash of preposterous action sequences.
Like many action stars, Statham is good at cool brooding, but West's frantic style works against this.
There's some limited entertainment to be found in a movie as insistently conflicted as The Mechanic, but the accretion of sadism, humorlessness and antediluvian sexual politics is finally more exhausting than enlivening.
Mr. Statham, the specialist in English tough guys who was so affecting in "The Bank Job," has more to offer than The Mechanic has the grace to receive.
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Movies.com Critic
Murder you can feel good about.
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Explodes into your heart.
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