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• 4 trailers in 576i

Based on the story by Lewis John Carlino, Bronson plays Arthur Bishop, a hit-man in California who is the best in his career. "The Killer of Killers"! Bishop, even hitting old age, is still the best at what he does, but his work as a cold-hearted assassin start to hit him and after a hit on a good-friend Henry McKenna, he suffers a breakdown and realizes a back-up wouldn't be so bad. He then discovers a protégé in Steve McKenna (Henry's twenty-ish year old son) strangely interested in Bishop's work. Bishop finds Steve as the perfect candidate and he is taken under Bishop's wing learning everything he knows. The hiring soon becomes a mistake when "The Organization" realize Bishop has made the choice to hire McKenna on his own, which is violating the code. What will happen next?

"The Mechanic," which opened yesterday at the Victoria and other theaters, is about Arthur Bishop (Charles Bronson), a cool professional killer who lives in lonely splendor in the Hollywood hills, with a pool in his living room and an ache in his heart. Although Arthur is a genius at planning the accidental deaths of others (including an old associate, on whom a contract has been let), and although he spends a lot of time keeping fit (jogging, handball, karate, flying a plane), something is awfully wrong in Arthur's life.

He suffers such fits of acute anxiety that he sometimes faints, and he can make it with his call-girl friend only when she creates elaborate fantasies about his sex appeal. Arthur even looks funny: he has the face and physique of a man of 50 who takes immense care of himself, but his hair is of a blackness and a consistency that suggest that Arthur—for the sake of vanity—dunks it in pitch.

Gary Tooze

June 27th, 2011