The Mechanic (1972)
Michael Winner's The Mechanic follows a hit man, Arthur Bishop (Charles Bronson), as he goes about his normal work routines resulting in killing people for money. He has a talent for making his kills look like accidents, as when he stakes out a man's apartment, takes photos through a telescope of belongings, the location of a box of tea and the brand. He picks the lock to the man's place, replaces tea bags with others of the same variety, these new ones treated with some knockout drug. He smears plastic explosive into the inside cover of a hardcover book, devises a way, using wax, of making the gas stove pilot light but not ignite right away, goes across the street to the temporarily rented crummy room he's inhabiting and waits for hours for the man to come home, make his tea, relax on his bed with a book (one different than the volume with the explosive). Bishop puts together his rifle, takes aim, and shoots at the loaded book, causing an explosion enhanced greatly by the gas.
His own home is a sprawling modernistic place too big for one person, yet he lives there by himself. He has no friends, no family. He's dedicated to doing his job professionally and efficiently, yet, after killing a former associate (by contract), Harry McKenna (Keenan Wynn), Bishop, at first reluctantly, takes on an apprentice, McKenna's son, Steve (Jan-Michael Vincent), arrogant and brash with increasingly evident sociopathic tendencies. Arguably, Bishop is also a sociopath, but his experience and caution make him the opposite of a hothead.
Steve takes to the job and the training with enthusiasm. His own background, not much gone into, reveals something deeply felt, perhaps, in his childhood. Even though he now owns his dead father's huge house, he still sleeps in his childhood bed, one of two in a small room. Did he or does he have a sibling? It's a never answered mystery. The first scene in that bedroom made me wonder immediately about the two narrow beds. Whatever the key to that piece of set design, the two beds point to a twinning in this character's psyche. As he learns from Arthur Bishop, Steve McKenna has an ulterior motive, seeking ultimately to set himself up as a professional freelance hit man, distinct from his mentor, who gets his work from a "syndicate," code for organized crime.
The pupil, more ruthless than the teacher, becomes dangerous to Bishop, whose name must've been chosen carefully by the screenwriter and/or the director. The bishop in chess moves diagonally or slantwise. Bishop's victims never see him coming--he has command of a wide view of the board. He's in charge of himself, hence he's Arthur, as in King Arthur, but the king he works for is offscreen and probably consists of a group of like-minded highly-placed criminals using Bishop to enforce their rules. They're not pleased he's taken on an "associate" in Steve. They give him a job to do in Naples, Italy, but quick. Arthur isn't used to hurrying a job. He brings along Steve, they experience much excitement and danger together, but the young McKenna has a few good moves of his own.
The movie sits well with me after having watched it a few nights ago. Tautly paced, there isn't a single scene that isn't interesting as we watch Arthur go about the business of his profession. Charles Bronson and Jan-Michael Vincent are good together, a mismatched generational pair in early 1970s Los Angeles society, yet mutually interested in pursuing the art of murder for lucrative gain.
Somehow, this thriller manages to keep on with the intrigue generated by the two lead characters without explaining much about them. At a distance from them as individuals, an audience member (the kind who doesn't murder people for money) nonetheless can look upon Arthur and Steve with wonderment as they go about their tasks, so far removed from ordinary life. While Steve McKenna sees the life of a freelance hit man as a young man's hopeful vision of freedom to enjoy his own life to the fullest, Arthur Bishop's viewpoints are weighted with long experience, which may explain why in one scene he stares at his reproduction of the "Hell" panel of Hieronymus Bosch's triptych, "The Garden of Earthly Delights."
Vic Neptune
Michael Winner's The Mechanic follows a hit man, Arthur Bishop (Charles Bronson), as he goes about his normal work routines resulting in killing people for money. He has a talent for making his kills look like accidents, as when he stakes out a man's apartment, takes photos through a telescope of belongings, the location of a box of tea and the brand. He picks the lock to the man's place, replaces tea bags with others of the same variety, these new ones treated with some knockout drug. He smears plastic explosive into the inside cover of a hardcover book, devises a way, using wax, of making the gas stove pilot light but not ignite right away, goes across the street to the temporarily rented crummy room he's inhabiting and waits for hours for the man to come home, make his tea, relax on his bed with a book (one different than the volume with the explosive). Bishop puts together his rifle, takes aim, and shoots at the loaded book, causing an explosion enhanced greatly by the gas.
His own home is a sprawling modernistic place too big for one person, yet he lives there by himself. He has no friends, no family. He's dedicated to doing his job professionally and efficiently, yet, after killing a former associate (by contract), Harry McKenna (Keenan Wynn), Bishop, at first reluctantly, takes on an apprentice, McKenna's son, Steve (Jan-Michael Vincent), arrogant and brash with increasingly evident sociopathic tendencies. Arguably, Bishop is also a sociopath, but his experience and caution make him the opposite of a hothead.
Steve takes to the job and the training with enthusiasm. His own background, not much gone into, reveals something deeply felt, perhaps, in his childhood. Even though he now owns his dead father's huge house, he still sleeps in his childhood bed, one of two in a small room. Did he or does he have a sibling? It's a never answered mystery. The first scene in that bedroom made me wonder immediately about the two narrow beds. Whatever the key to that piece of set design, the two beds point to a twinning in this character's psyche. As he learns from Arthur Bishop, Steve McKenna has an ulterior motive, seeking ultimately to set himself up as a professional freelance hit man, distinct from his mentor, who gets his work from a "syndicate," code for organized crime.
The pupil, more ruthless than the teacher, becomes dangerous to Bishop, whose name must've been chosen carefully by the screenwriter and/or the director. The bishop in chess moves diagonally or slantwise. Bishop's victims never see him coming--he has command of a wide view of the board. He's in charge of himself, hence he's Arthur, as in King Arthur, but the king he works for is offscreen and probably consists of a group of like-minded highly-placed criminals using Bishop to enforce their rules. They're not pleased he's taken on an "associate" in Steve. They give him a job to do in Naples, Italy, but quick. Arthur isn't used to hurrying a job. He brings along Steve, they experience much excitement and danger together, but the young McKenna has a few good moves of his own.
The movie sits well with me after having watched it a few nights ago. Tautly paced, there isn't a single scene that isn't interesting as we watch Arthur go about the business of his profession. Charles Bronson and Jan-Michael Vincent are good together, a mismatched generational pair in early 1970s Los Angeles society, yet mutually interested in pursuing the art of murder for lucrative gain.
Somehow, this thriller manages to keep on with the intrigue generated by the two lead characters without explaining much about them. At a distance from them as individuals, an audience member (the kind who doesn't murder people for money) nonetheless can look upon Arthur and Steve with wonderment as they go about their tasks, so far removed from ordinary life. While Steve McKenna sees the life of a freelance hit man as a young man's hopeful vision of freedom to enjoy his own life to the fullest, Arthur Bishop's viewpoints are weighted with long experience, which may explain why in one scene he stares at his reproduction of the "Hell" panel of Hieronymus Bosch's triptych, "The Garden of Earthly Delights."
Vic Neptune
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