Blogorium Review: Bronson

 Bronson is not the fictionalized story of Charles Bronson, just to get that out of the way. I know that many of you saw the cover (as I did) and thought (as I did not) "I don't remember Charles Bronson being bald or having a curly moustache. I mean, I guess he was tough but this guy looks like he could be Bane from Batman, for crying out loud," or something to that effect. That's a fair reaction, so just so you know, this is not a biopic about The Great Escape or Death Wish any more than the Jason Statham The Mechanic is a faithful remake of The Mechanic and not just a Jason Statham movie with a title you might maybe recognize.

 It is, however, the fictionalized story of Charles Bronson (née Michael Peterson), who has the distinction of being "Britain's Most Violent Prisoner." As the movie (and the back of the DVD / Blu-Ray) tells us, he has "34 Years in Prison, 30 in Solitary Confinement," with the exception of the 69 days he was not in prison which was when he began bare knuckle boxing under the name "Charles Bronson." Bronson is quick to inform us that he's never killed anyone, although he really likes to get in fights, hold people hostage, and cover himself in grease, paint, or feces before fighting prison officials. All because he held up a post office (and then later stole a ring).

 This might be confusing because I swear early in the film that one of the prison officials calls him "Charlie" when he's supposed to be sewing. That would be some time in the 1970s (between 1974, hen he's sent to prison, and when he's sent to an insane asylum), well before he chooses the name "Charles Bronson" which we see happen later in the film. At first I was taken aback but then realized that in a movie that exists in such a heightened state of "reality" that everything we're seeing only exists as Bronson sees it.

 You'd think the parts where he's on a theatre stage addressing an audience while wearing a tuxedo and face paint would be a dead giveaway of that, but I made the mistake of taking some of the flashbacks at face value. My mistake.

 Anyway, so most of the film is designed to be expressionistic or at the very least to not reflect any reality you or I could point to, although it does seem like the real Charles Bronson (not Mr. Majestyk) does actually have the reputation of doing these ridiculous things. There's a moment when he's explaining one of the mental facilities they sent him to before he was released and what happened there, and instead of recreating it he just stands in front of a screen showing (what I assume to be) actual news footage of the riot he caused. Some times the real thing is more effective than trying to re-enact it.

 That said, I don't know how successful Nicholas Winding Refn and Tom Hardy are in conveying this to the audience. A lot of my friends hate Drive (I do not) and if you don't like that then you're really not going to like Bronson. It's way more self consciously "art-y" and has the same affinity for synth-heavy music (example: we learn that it's the 1980s in the movie when the inmates of the asylum are dancing to The Pet Shop Boys' "It's a Sin").

 I liked much of what Refn did visually with the film and I thought Tom Hardy was charismatic and creepy and sometimes very awkward as Charles Bronson / Michael Peterson. There's a section of the film where he goes all "Bruce Willis in 12 Monkeys" in the asylum, drooling and shuffling around and generally not accomplishing his goal of "building an empire." I believe Hardy as Bronson when he says prison was his calling and that he believes it's his way of making a name for himself (I mean, they made a movie about him and not about the guy from Death Wish) and it once again steps Tom Hardy away from being Jean-Luc Picard's wimpy clone and towards being a guy who could break Christian Bale in half.

 Maybe the problem is that Refn and co-screenwriter Brock Norman Brock don't ever convey that Charles Bronson is actually having the impact he wants to have. Part of this is that we rarely ever see other prisoners when he's in jail (and while he's in solitary for 30 years, he spends plenty of time outside of his cell) and because it's only the world as Bronson sees it, so there's no stepping back and seeing his actual impact on Britain or anything else that merits what we're told ABOUT Charles Bronson. The mistake they make is only showing us Charles Bronson through his eyes and not the eyes of others, with two exceptions near the end that don't bolster his case.

 One is the Prison Governor(Johnny Phillips) who tells Bronson he's "pathetic" after the whole "building an empire" spiel, and the other Bronson's art teacher (James Lance), who sees his paintings as a way to make himself famous for "discovering" this imprisoned artist. Bronson thanks him by holding him hostage and painting on his face, then he demands the Governor play music while Charlie strips down, paints himself black, and prepares to fight a losing battle with the guards. I like that Bronson holds hostages even though he doesn't seem to want anything, but neither of these perspectives seem to reinforce what Charles Bronson wants his legacy to be. The real Charles Bronson at least popularized the "sock full of quarters" method of beatings as a viable form of revenge.

 So yeah, I guess there are things I liked about Bronson, especially Tom Hardy, but also the movie doesn't quite do its subject justice, or at least adequately convey why it is that Charles Bronson deserves the reputation he has. It gives some anecdotal evidence but I think ultimately I'd have to overturn this verdict and say that the movie version of Michael Peterson is not deserving of the moniker Charles Bronson. I think the real Charles Bronson would agree, even from the grave, where I would still assume he could film Death Wish 6, if he desired. Still, Bronson is worth renting or watching streaming on Netflix. Unless you don't like Drive. If you don't like Drive then maybe you should watch Once Upon a Time in the West. That's on streaming, too.

Blogorium Review: The Mechanic (2011)

The Mechanic falls into that unfortunate category of "mid-grade" Jason Statham films, where the movie is neither good enough to heartily recommend but also not bad enough to steer people away. It falls into the same category as War, The Transporter 3, Chaos, and Cellular - movies not good enough to be dumb fun like Death Race or Crank: High Voltage, but not as terrible as Ghosts of Mars or In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale. It's not even an interesting side-step, like The Bank Job (a film I happen to think is much better than the rap it gets), or as inconsequential-yet-entertaining like The Italian Job. The Mechanic is watchable, if a bit dull, action oriented if awkwardly staggered, and predictable to a fault, but not necessarily dull.

Arthur Bishop (Statham) is a "mechanic," a specialty hit man hired to make assassinations look like accidents. When his boss, Dean (Tony Goldwyn) orders Bishop to kill Harry McKenna (Donald Sutherland), his mentor, because the elder mechanic apparently betrayed a mission in Capetown, Arthur reluctantly does the job. Much to Bishop's chagrin, Harry's son, Steve (Ben Foster), a human wrecking ball of rage, comes to New Orleans seeking revenge against the unknown assailant. The mechanic reluctantly takes Steve under his wing, training him to kill without a trace (something the younger McKenna is reticent to follow). When it becomes clear that Dean lied to Bishop, the duo plan to take the boss out, but hiding the secret of who killed Harry McKenna grows more difficult the further they push.

Right off the bat, the fatal flaw of The Mechanic - the remake of a film people didn't seem to know existed - is Ben Foster's Steve McKenna. When I say a "human wrecking ball of rage," I mean that McKenna ignores everything that Bishop teaches him every single time they take a "job" and either makes a huge mess out of the hit or nearly gets himself killed. For no reason other than the film mandates master and apprentice stick together, Bishop keeps Steve around: after he ignores instructions on how to kill another "mechanic," after his carelessness turns a successful hit into a public shootout, and even when Steve finally discovers who killed his father, when Bishop has the option to dump and run. Instead, Steve is already living in the mechanic's secluded bayou home, and Bishop can't muster more than an "eh" that his pupil is single-handedly destroying his livelihood.

It would make sense if there was any way that Steve could figure out that Bishop killed his father, but the only reason it happens is a direct result of keeping him in the story. It's fair to point out that the film doesn't set up rules that Bishop should follow and then breaks them; it's the direct involvement of McKenna that sours the kills. At certain points, one has to wonder aloud why Bishop would keep him around at all.

Then again, this is a 90 minute movie that takes a long time to get where everyone knows it's going: after an assassination of a Colombian drug lord and voiceover explanation of what a "mechanic" does, everything moves nicely until Steve McKenna arrives in New Orleans. Then things slow to a molasses while the protagonists dance around each other, toying with something anyone who saw the trailer already knows is going to happen. Hell, what anyone who is following the story knows is going to happen because there's no other direction this film would take.

Speaking of which, I suppose I should do due diligence and mention that aside from the ending and some shifts in how the mechanic and protege bond, this version of The Mechanic isn't that different from the 1972 original starring Charles Bronson and Jan-Michael Vincent. Statham doesn't really draw any unfavorable comparisons to Bronson because he's really just playing another variation on the "Jason Statham Action Hero" part he usually plays, which is really only different from usual in that he's less snarky. Oh, and there's a moment where I said out loud "are we supposed to be rooting for these guys?" when Bishop permanently scars an innocent teenage girl by threatening to stick her hand down the garbage disposal. Why? To force a character we've just met into telling him where Dean works.

As much as Ben Foster is a vacuum that sucks the entertaining out of The Mechanic, I guess he's a step up from Jan-Michael Vincent. The original was directed by Michael Winner, who went on to make the first three Death Wish films; the remake by Simon West, who directed Con Air and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. Believe it or not, it's kind of a wash; The Mechanic is competently shot, without any ridiculous editing flourishes that I noticed. I didn't regret watching The Mechanic, nor was I bored (my patience was tested a few times), and when it was over the general reaction was "it was pretty good."

I would like to mention one amusing moment, something that screams "deleted scene." That's really the only way to explain an otherwise superfluous moment: when Bishop goes to meet Dean about killing Harry, one of the thugs is wearing a "World Champion" ring, and there's a little back and forth while Statham and the bodyguard size each other up:

"Nice ring. How do I get one of those?"

"You can't, unless you're a world champion."

And then Bishop goes off with Dean to talk shop, but the seed has been planted: eventually, the "World Champion" and Bishop will square off and then he's going to take that ring. I mean, we've all seen The Rundown. That's how things work in action movies. Sure enough, just in case we forgot about it, later in the movie Bishop is sitting at his laptop, looking at a picture of the "World Champion" ring online, just before he and Steve head out to take on the bad guys. So where's the payoff? That's the last time we ever see or hear about that ring or Bishop's interest in it. What are you hiding, deleted scenes? What, I say???


 EDIT: For readers who have been checking in to find out what "World Champion" ring appears in The Mechanic, here's a handy visual guide to the scenes from the film:

 So here's the ring . It's a 1992 "World Champion" ring. A Google image search for NBA, MLB, NHL, and NFL championship rings doesn't pull up anything that looks like the image in the middle (it looks like an "R").

  Later, Bishop pulls up Ask.com and a quasi-Google search engine and is looking at a Superbowl World Champion Ring (not the same one from earlier in the film). For comparison's sake, here's a "Miami" Superbowl World Championship ring as featured in The Rundown.

 

  So what can we say definitively? I'm not sure, but considering how the ring changes (and its significance in the film) something was cut from The Mechanic.

There are worse ways to spend 90 minutes than with The Mechanic. I realize that doesn't do wonders as recommendations go, but other than telling you it's not a bad movie, I'm not sure what you'd want to know. It delivers exactly what the trailers promised, with a little padding to fill out the run time. It's neither worth writing home about nor worth avoiding. If you're looking for an action movie you haven't seen yet, and want a middle of the road movie with Jason Statham, The Mechanic is as good as a bet as any of his other movies. You'll get exactly what you pay for, and I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. It's just a thing.