If Jason Statham were to have individual business cards for what he does for a living, job status as professional ass kicker would not be a lie. He isn’t an actor who gravitates from romantic comedies to weepy dramas. He is an action star through and through. From The Transporter series to showing how Expendable he is, the man has built quite a following. Even notorious film critic Armond White couldn’t overlook what Statham has brought to the action genre, going as far as to call him “the leading international action film star.”
Fans of the action thespian (that’s right, there’s a certain degree of quality in his performances) won’t have to wait long to see Jason Statham on the big screen again. CBS Films has debuted the first trailer for The Mechanic (no doubt to be attached to prints of The Next Three Days), a remake of 1972 film starring Charles Bronson. If you’re an action junkie and don’t get just a little excited for this, well, you must have a death wish.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6SLtgoNY2Y&feature=player_embedded
Simon West, of Con Air and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider previously, directs The Mechanic from a script by Richard Wenk and Lewis John Carlino, based on Carlino’s original story. Just reading the synopsis, there is some disparity between the 1972 original and this update. Nevertheless, I like the pairing of Statham and co-star Ben Foster, an actor who has slowly been building up his bad-ass cred thanks to roles in Alpha Dog and 3:10 to Yuma. It will be interesting to see if this remake retains the original opening where there is no dialogue for the first sixteen minutes. Considering how ADD prone viewers are today, I doubt it.
The Mechanic is open for business on January 28, 2011.
