Mechanic: Resurrection

First Hit:  Entertaining enough to make it fun to watch.

I recall the first “The Mechanic” film I saw in 1972, which starred Charles Bronson as Arthur Bishop. I liked the concept of an, almost heatless, assassin for hire. Bronson didn’t talk much and let his body, action and eyes do his speaking for him. He was rough but very thoughtful in his preparation to carry out his mission.

In 2011 “The Mechanic” was remade with Jason Statham playing the role of Arthur Bishop. The plot of these two films were closely aligned and Statham did a really good job of recreating this role that Bronson played so effectively. He also brought a glint of heart to the role.

In this reprise of the same character, Bishop has attempted to hide away and live a quiet life in Rio de Janeiro. However, he gets a visit from an agent of Crain (Sam Hazeldine) who wants Bishop to do 3 more assassinations. Bishop refuses and heads to another small shack in Thailand.

Here Mei (Michelle Yeoh) helps him get settled. When a tourist name Gina (Jessica Alba) gets in trouble Bishop saves her but it is all a plot by Crain to get Bishop do to the assassinations. Leveraged, Bishop ingeniously does his work but also goes after Crain.

The setups of the assassinations are interesting and engaging. The overall plot is a bit weak, but the way the actors play their roles keeps the whole film entertaining and the audience engaged.

Statham is a great choice for this character as he leads with intelligence before brawn. You also get to see that Bishop cares. Alba is OK and helped the plot along. Yeoh was good as the person Bishop once helped and will do anything to help him. Hazeldine was sinister enough. Tommy Lee Jones has a minor, yet key role as one of Bishop’s targets but becomes an ally. Philip Shelby and Tony Mosher wrote an engaging script and didn’t push plot devices too far. Dennis Gansel did a good job of keeping the film moving and made this film an extension of the Statham’s Mechanic film.

Overall:  This movie was action packed and engaging.

War Dogs

First Hit:  I enjoyed this film because it showed the absurdity of how the US Government created a system allowing two young men in their 20's to bid for and win large contracts to provide arms to and for our government.

Based on a true story, I was both flabbergasted and amazed at the ingenuity of Efraim Diveroli and David Packouz (Jonah Hill and Miles Teller respectively) to find ways to bid for and win US Government arms contracts.

David is a massage therapist in Miami and his fiancé Iz (Ana de Armas) becomes pregnant. Efraim, his old junior high-school friend, comes back into town with a proposition to help him in his new business, arms dealer.

Together they start landing contracts, but the one that puts them on the map is one where they end up having to drive cases of Beretta handguns from Jordan to Baghdad. The complications to their story included, David lying to Iz about his whereabouts and what he was doing as well as Efraim’s deep seeded greed and how it plays out in their deals as well as his personal relationships.

Bradley Cooper as Henry Girard a US Citizen arms supplier (middle man) who is also on a watch list because of some previous nefarious dealings. Many of the scenes were made good because of the acting of both Teller and Hill.

Teller was strong as the somewhat gullible friend, who in the end, was not so gullible. Hill was a blast. His laugh and intensity was perfect for the kind of guy that uses people to benefit himself. Armas was very good as David’s fiancé and mother of their daughter. Cooper was well cast in that he brought the right kind of intensity and friendliness when it suited him. Stephen Chin, Todd Phillips, and  Jason Smilovic wrote a fun and intense script based on a Rolling Stone article. Phillips also seemed to have a strong hand in the direction as the various countries and scenes were well constructed.

Overall:  Although not a blockbuster, it was a fun film and enjoyable to watch.

Anthropoid

First Hit:  This was a strong, well-presented, and interesting film about the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich the architect of the holocaust.

The story follows a small group of men who parachute into Czechoslovakia with the goal of assassinating Reinhard Heydrich who had been sent to Czechoslovakia to ensure that the country supplies Germany with the war materials they expect.

There is a resistance movement in Prague which has been decimated by German soldiers publicly killing people who do not fall in line with German leader wishes. Heydrich had come up with the plan and process for killing all European Jews and was Hitler’s number 3 guy so he was Hitler's guy to get Czechoslovakia in line.

The film mainly follows two of the men, Jan Kubis and Josef Gabcik (Jamie Dornan and Cillian Murphy respectively) who parachuted into the republic, and find themselves in Prague being helped by the resistance led by Uncle Hajsky (Toby Jones). Both Jan and Josef are coupled with two women Marie Kovarnikova and Lenka Fafkova (Charlotte Le Bon and Anna Geislerova respectively) as a way to help them blend into Prague city life while they plan the assassination.

The film is graphic about the struggle and occasionally uses actual footage. The scene of the actual assassination was well staged in that it felt risky and real. The suspense was palpable.

The end scene with the battle in the church was very well done and very heroic in nature. Watching this film was like watching an important piece of history, which means the filmmakers did an excellent job of bringing this story to life.

Dornan was wonderful as the guy who struggled to pull the trigger but when the chips were down he was a reliable member of the team. His romance and connection with Marie was palpable. Murphy was fantastic and the driver of the mission. His ability to be strong, yet apologize for his focus, was truly heartfelt. Jones was really good as the main contact and leader of the underground. Le Bon was really good in the way she was supportive of the mission and her love for Kubis. Geislerova was truly amazing. Her strength of character shone through in this role. Sean Ellis and Anthony Frewin wrote a very strong script and Ellis’ direction was spot on.

Overall:  This was a truly interesting and well-acted film about a historical event.

Jason Bourne

First Hit:  Unnecessary shaky camera work got in the way of a sub-standard story about Jason Bourne.

I don’t mind shaky camera work when it adds to the excitement of a scene in a film. In some films it works really well (think “Breaking the Waves”). It can also be helpful when the audience is following someone who is running and other scenes like this. The technique becomes a mindless technique and distraction when unnecessarily used to create excitement.

The story needs to be exciting first and foremost. Paul Greengrass used a ton of unnecessary shaky camera work in this film. Examples abound, like when a sniper is setting up to shoot, the camera needed to be as still and calm as the in-breath and out-breath of a sniper making a clean shot. Internal and external landscape shots of an area so that the audience knows the the lay of the land instead of haphazard shots creating confusion for the audience.  

When I have the thought "why can’t the camera stop shaking", it is a distraction. The director doesn't want the audience thinking about why they cannot tell what is happening on the screen.

Greengrass may have used this technique because the story is less intriguing than the previous Bourne films (The Bourne Identity – 2002, The Bourne Supremacy – 2004, The Bourne Ultimatum – 2007, and The Bourne Legacy – 2012). The first three captured my attention mostly because the story was great, had passion, intrigue, and suspense. In the 2012 version, Matt Damon wasn’t playing Jason Bourne directly and therefore the film lacked the amazingness he brings to this franchise.

This version had Matt Damon back as Jason Bourne seeking to piece together his father’s death and involvement in Blackbriar while attempting to settle his own personal struggles of identity.

As an overall storyline it wasn’t the best, yet it did have a side story about today’s issue of using technology to track people and their actions. Here, the company creating software that can do this is lead by Aaron Kallor (Riz Ahmed). But the story and film are about Bourne and Damon is such a strong actor that he brings this character to life like no one else can. He makes Bourne complex, charming, physically capable, and chivalrous, or as much as a undercover CIA agent can be chivalrous.

The villain is still the agency as they believe he knows too much and will continue to expose their illegal covert programs. It was wonderful to see Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles), his previous supporting agency agent, helping Jason to get additional information helping him to piece together the puzzle.

The film showing the kind of technology available to the CIA was very good and interesting. The new CIA Director Robert Dewey (Tommy Lee Jones), as always, wants Jason eliminated. He uses an Asset (Vincent Cassel) to do the dirty work and like, Bourne he’s relentless.

Another bright spot was CIA Agent Heather Lee (Alicia Vikander) who takes on the previous Pam Landy (Joan Allen) spot as head of the task force to bring Bourne in (or take him out). Lee, like Landy, connects with Bourne as a person and shows a level of compassion for his plight. One last note, I thought the car chase through downtown Las Vegas overdone and unnecessarily unrealistic.

Damon is Jason Bourne. In my eyes he’s the only guy who can pull off the character Jason Bourne because he created him. As usual, I loved his performance. Jones was OK as the crusty, old school, CIA Director but felt he was too crusty to run an agency that is filled with new progressive technology. Vikander was perfect for the part. Her strong, aggressive, and young female portrayal of a top CIA Agent in this world of progressive electronics was perfect. She was the opposite of Jones. Stiles was great to see again and her role really helped tie together Bourne and the new players in the agency. Cassel was perfect as the Asset. He does focused single minded action as good as anyone. Ahmed does a good job as being a software vendor who got into bed with the CIA and now wants out. Paul Greengrass and Christopher Rouse wrote a barely adequate script, but it was Greengrass’s direction that lowed the Bourne bar.

Overall:  Although shaky, it is watchable because Damon makes it work.

Our Kind of Traitor

First Hit:  Really nice build up for first half,  just sustains the intensity through the back half, but ends quite nicely.

My wife mentioned to me that she thought “Our Kind of Traitor” is a lackluster title for a film and I agree.

There are a couple of stories going on in this film:  First we have and see a Perry and Gail (Ewan McGregor and Naomi Watts respectively) struggling as a married couple. And second we have a Russian laced espionage thriller. How do these two stories meet? Struggling as a couple, Perry and Gail are on holiday in Morocco to try to bring some romance back into their ten-year relationship.

They are very different people; Perry is a poetic professor at a prestigious university and Gail is a workaholic lawyer who makes a lot of money. In a Moroccan restaurant, Gail gets a work call and has to leave so Perry gets propositioned by a gregarious Russian named Dima (Stellan Skarsgard) to join his party for a drink. Dima takes a liking to Perry and invites him to a late night party followed by an early morning tennis match. Their friendship grows and Dima asks Perry to deliver a thumb drive to MI6 in London when he returns home.

As head money launderer for the Russians, Dima suspects he and his family will be killed soon after a bank deal transpires in London. Gail thinks Perry is not doing a smart thing by going through with the delivery but despite her opinion, he follows through.

The tale heats up after they deliver the thumb drive to MI6 Agent Hector (Damian Lewis) but starts to fall off in intensity as the cat and mouse game begins to drag on. However, in the end, Dima wants to save his family, Perry and Gail may get closer, and Hector wants to put a nail in the coffin of his former boss whom he suspects as selling his soul and being a traitor.

McGregor was perfect because he portrayed the intelligence, compassion and integrity this role required. Watts was wonderful as the smart, quick witted wife while in the end wholly supporting her husband’s actions. Skarsgard was sublime. His intensity, deep boisterous growls, and single-minded objective made him the right man for this role. Lewis was adroitly a great choice as the MI6 agent, who was willing to move outside the box to follow his revenge. Hossein Amini wrote a good screenplay from the John le Carre novel. And despite the strong start and mediocre back half, Susanna White’s direction, in the end, brought the whole thing together rather well.

Overall:  One of the better film versions of a John le Carre story.