The current cinema, not-to-be-trifled-with edition

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• jbryant says:

  January 26, 2011 at 5:44 pm

  Statham is just about the only act­or these days who can get me into the theat­er on his name alone (well, unless Uwe Boll is the dir­ect­or). On the dis­taff side, Emma Stone.

• bill says:

  January 26, 2011 at 5:59 pm

  I like Statham too, but am I wrong in think­ing that the hit­men in this remake only assas­sin­ate “bad” people? As opposed to the ori­gin­al, which – though my recent view­ing was trun­cated – was quite a bit more amoral.

• warren oates says:

  January 26, 2011 at 6:08 pm

  I agree with jbry­ant. DEATH RACE was one of last year’s guilty pleas­ures. I assume the iron­ic end­ing of the ori­gin­al MECHANIC is left intact? And how about that poster I’ve seen on bus stops every­where. Reminds me of that Xzhibit meme: “Yo dawg, I hear you like guns, so we put some guns in your guns…”

• Glenn Kenny says:

  January 26, 2011 at 6:54 pm

  Bill: I can­not tell a lie; this “Mechanic” does hedge its bets in pre­cisely the fash­ion you describe, but not, I hasten to add, in a showy or preachy way. You almost don’t notice. It’s not as if the guy’s work­ing for Greenpeace or any­thing like that. And in the fur­ther plus ledger, inno­cents are at the very least trau­mat­ized, and pros­ti­tu­tion is depic­ted more as a social fact than a social ill.
  Man, Statham rules SO HARD that I can­’t believe I ate break­fast with the man pretty much twelve years ago to the day today, at Sundance with the rest of the “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” crew. they were a great bunch of guys and they were hav­ing a blast. One of those inter­views where you can­’t wait to fin­ish up the inter­rog­a­tion and just hang out and smoke cigar­ettes. Of course I rather doubt that any of us still smoke anymore.

• bill says:

  January 26, 2011 at 8:17 pm

  I don’t even really mean that they’re killing “bad” people while stump­ing for any spe­cif­ic cause. It’s just the cow­ardice of not being able to por­tray hit­men as, you know, assholes.

• Bripherly says:

  January 26, 2011 at 9:15 pm

  I don’t know what the going rate is on com­mis­sioned pieces, but I’d pay a hefty sum for a few more words on “Rolling Thunder”.

• I.V. says:

  January 26, 2011 at 10:22 pm

  Good brief points on Winner and the Winner Bronsons in that review. The J. Lee Thompson-directed one are much bet­ter, which still does­n’t make them all that great; the sin­gu­lar phe­nomen­on of Bronson should not hide the fact that almost all of the movies he was in were ter­rible (how­ever, have to admit a weak spot for KINJITE).
  Also, Glenn, did you see FASTER?

• Glenn Kenny says:

  January 26, 2011 at 10:38 pm

  @ I.V., I have yet to see “Faster,” and I look for­ward to catch­ing up with it. While I do not diap­prove of the Rock fella in the least, I gotta say that Statham is more my cup of meat. But any pic­ture with my old friend Mr. Thornton wear­ing a Peter Gallagher hair­piece has to have some­thing on its mind.

• Jeff Allard says:

  January 27, 2011 at 12:43 am

  Glenn, I love Statham so I was set on see­ing THE MECHANIC any­how but you instantly bumped up my screen­ing from a pos­sible Sunday after­noon to Friday night with “This movie is REALLY viol­ent.” Thanks!

• jbryant says:

  January 27, 2011 at 8:25 am

  “Peter Gallagher hair­piece” – scalp or eyebrows?

• Escher says:

  January 27, 2011 at 8:55 am

  Nice review. But you might want to hire a Copy Hitman to:
  – rub out one of the “here“s in the sen­tence near the end of the 3^rd para­graph read­ing, “And indeed, Goldwyn here plays a rather unc­tu­ous pup­pet mas­ter here.”
  – make it “an are-they-really-gonna-go-there homage” rather than “a…homage”
  – choose between “tra­di­tion” and “vein” in place of the awk­ward con­struc­tion “tradition/vein”

• bill says:

  January 27, 2011 at 9:41 am

  I’m so glad Escher is here.

• Glenn Kenny says:

  January 27, 2011 at 9:54 am

  @ Bill, Escher; Alas, it’s a fair call, espe­cially since I give people shit about copy issues ALL THE TIME. And those errors are on me, and real, and not sub­ject to “oh, I was sleepy” and/or “oh, tight dead­line” excuses. And as it hap­pens I was gonna get in touch with my MSN guy and see about sneak­ing in and mak­ing at least one fix this morn­ing. But such are the joys of the inter­net that Escher has, in effect, beaten me to the punch, so now we can­’t get away with shit. Oh well. Just have to be more care­ful next time. I’m rather reminded of the “What do you want to do about the boy, Frank?” bit in “Once Upon A Time In The West.”

• Sal C says:

  January 27, 2011 at 12:11 pm

  I am sur­prised that with the Statham love fest goin’ on here that no one has yet men­tioned THE BANK JOB. Such a pleas­ur­able movie and Statham at his charm­ing best.
  Was not crazy about THE MECHANIC and I went in with high hopes. I agree with your assess­ment (it cer­tainly is nasty, bru­tish and short) but I nev­er got that giddy rush that I look for when it comes to action pic­tures. Felt kind of plod­ding and mopey.

• A different Brian says:

  January 27, 2011 at 1:23 pm

  Little girl, it’s a great big world / But there’s only one of me

• Phil Freeman says:

  January 27, 2011 at 3:28 pm

  I, too, am a mem­ber of the “Statham’s in it? Sold” club, and for­tu­nately, so is my wife. Very much look­ing for­ward to this one – and to catch­ing FASTER on DVD.

• bill says:

  January 27, 2011 at 3:32 pm

  I can­’t say I’m sold on a movie just because Statham’s in it. I’ve skipped all but the first TRANSPORTER and CRANK movies, for instance. But plunk him down in a movie like THE BANK JOB or THE EXPENDABLES or so on, and I’m there.

• I.V. says:

  January 27, 2011 at 4:11 pm

  It may be a Peter Gallagher hair-and-eyebrows-piece, but he’s really play­ing Harry Dean Stanton.

• Nick Hangs Out on Sunset says:

  January 27, 2011 at 10:06 pm

  Back to the Bronson pic­tures. I have always liked Hard Times.