Goro Hanada (Shishido) is a professional killer, a hitman who likes to sniff steamed rice. He’s ranked number three among killers and looking to make his way up to the top spot with a bullet but the competition is fierce. His world is turned upside down when he accidentally kills the wrong person on a job and becomes an outcast in his profession, much to the chagrin of his wife Mami (Ogawa) with whom he has a weird, psycho-sexual relationship. Hanada hooks up with Misako (Mari), a mysterious femme fatale with a dead butterfly fetish and whose future aspiration is to die (“I’m already a corpse anyway,” she says at one point).

Suzuki finds inventive ways to stage Hanada’s hits, like one rival, mortally wounded assassin who covers himself with his own jacket before expiring or when Hanada kills his target through a bathroom sink pipe (which was referenced in Jim Jarmusch’s Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai) or another shown mostly from his point-of-view.

Filmed in moody black and white, Branded to Kill is an atmospheric gangster film – the Japanese version of film noir with its extensive use of shadows and hard-boiled characters. The film starts off as a fairly standard crime film but as it progresses, Suzuki incorporates more and more unusual stylistic elements coupled with increasingly bizarre behavior by his characters that stretch the conventions of the genre. Branded to Kill is Japanese New Wave cinema at its most extreme with Suzuki flying in the face of the mainstream with his experimental tale of the rise and fall of an assassin.

Special Features:

There is an interview with director Seijun Suzuki and assistant director Masami Kuzuu about working on Branded to Kill. The studio had no projects so Suzuki and several of his screenwriting friends wrote a script that he shot. They talk about the casting of the actors and tell several filming anecdotes.

Actor Joe Shishido talks about how he had plastic surgery to further his career as a leading man. He is quite a character in this entertaining interview as he talks about his career.

Also included is a 1997 interview with Suzuki at a retrospective of his films. He talks about working for Nikkatsu. His solution to dealing with scripts that weren’t good enough was to make the final film, “fun and entertaining.”

Finally, there is a theatrical trailer.

Tetsuya Hondo (Watari) is a Japanese gangster trying to lead an honest life as the syndicate he belonged to dissolved itself and went legit. The only problem is that they borrowed money from their rival – Yoshii – and now they’ve come to collect. In the film’s striking washed out black and white prologue, Tetsu is beaten up by the Yoshii syndicate when he refuses to work for them, which, as it turns out, is a test to see if he’s actually gone legit. Out of loyalty to his former boxes, Tetsu decides to help him pay off the debt that is owed. However, complications arise when yet another rival syndicate kills Yoshii and takes over collecting the debt.

Tokyo Drifter has a striking ‘60s pop art look with a nightclub’s walls saturated in purple; a scene with a singer accompanied by a piano in a yellow room and is visited by a man in a red suit, while phones in various rooms in various places are primary colors. These vivid contrasts in color, coupled with the hep jazz soundtrack, make for a very unusual gangster film. Suzuki uses color and composition of the widescreen frame masterfully, like how he places his actors in a given frame.

Tetsuya Watari’s Tetsu is the epitome of ‘60s mod culture cool with his stylish suits, good looks and fashionable existential angst. It also doesn’t hurt that he’s pretty good with a gun. The pop art style that influenced Tokyo Drifter can also be seen in films like Modesty Blaise (1966) and In Like Flint (1967) but Suzuki’s film fearlessly pushes genre conventions further than either of these examples as he experimented with color and composition to a fascinating degree.

Special Features:

Director Seijun Suzuki and assistant director Masami Kuzuu are interviewed and reflect on making Tokyo Drifter. Suzuki saw the project as a “pop song movie.” The two men take us through the genesis of the film and talk about their approach to the look while sharing filming anecdotes.

Also included is a 1997 interview with Suzuki done in Los Angeles during a retrospective of his work. He speaks candidly about changing studios for more money. Suzuki also talks about his working methods. With Tokyo Drifter, he was under contract and obligated to make it in less than a month on a small budget. This is an interesting look at how genre films were made in ‘60s Japan.

Finally, there is a theatrical trailer.

Director Menahem Golan wastes no time trotting out the ninja stuff as he has one decked out in black showing off his skills while the opening credits appear on screen, ending with a white ninja coming on screen and kicking the black one (badly choreographed, by the way) in the head. Cole (Nero) is a white ninja (which means he’s good, right?) and we are introduced to him being chased by his arch-nemesis Hasegawa (Kosugi), the black ninja, and his flunkies – ninja dressed all in red (I guess these guys never watched Star Trek). Nero dispatches the seemingly endless supply of henchmen rather easily and has a showdown with Hasegawa (there’s even a nice bit where both of them jump off a rather tall waterfall) whom he finally bests after a prolonged confrontation. It turns out that this was all a test, which Cole passed and now he is officially a ninja, which doesn’t sit well with Hasegawa who is bitter, frustrated, and not too crazy about being bested by an American.

Regardless, Cole goes to Manila to visit an old friend of his by the name of Frank Landers (Courtney uncannily resembling James Caan in Thief) and his wife Mary-Ann (a slumming George) who live on a plantation. It seems that Frank is in trouble. He’s going to lose his land due to pressure by local crooks to sell it over to their boss – a weasely man known as the Hook (Noy) because he sports, well, a hook for a hand and a ridiculous German accent. The Hook and his cronies have scared off the local help. Impressed by Mary-Ann’s love for the land and disgusted by the way these thugs have scared off the hapless workers, Cole decides to step and put his considerable ninja skills to use. He soon learns that the Hook is only an errand boy of sorts for Mr. Venarius (George), a wealthy American businessman who thinks nothing of exploiting this country for profit. If that wasn’t enough, his old sparring buddy Hasegawa comes back for a rematch.

There is something almost comforting about seeing actual actors and stuntmen performing in action sequences that are not edited in a blender or shot with disorienting hand-held cameras or feature the use of CGI. This is strictly old school low-budget filmmaking at its cheesiest but that’s okay. At least it feels like the people who made this film actually cared about what they making and not the sterile studio feel of something like the recent Ninja Assassin (2009), which attempts to pay homage to the Cannon ninja films.

I think it’s safe to say that a generation of Americans learned everything they know about ninjutsu from Enter the Ninja and its subsequent follow-ups. There is something comforting about this film in a “it’s so bad it’s good” kind of way with its wooden acting, atrocious dialogue, subpar plotting, and a soundtrack that sounds like bad outtakes from a 1970’s cop television show, but also with plenty of cool ninja action. And let’s be honest. At the end of the day that’s what you really want out a film like this – ninja flying around attacking each other with throwing stars, smoke bomb and swords, which Enter the Ninja more than delivers.

Special Features:

A trailer.

We meet Jack (Depp) in deep trouble yet again as he finds himself on trial in London, England for, well, being himself. He cuts a deal with the authorities who want to find the Fountain of Youth before the Spanish do. After escaping their clutches he crosses paths with ex-flame and fellow pirate Angelica (Cruz). However, Jack’s long-time nemesis Captain Barbossa (Rush) is in the employ of the British and goes after his old foe. If that wasn’t bad enough, Jack is captured by the notorious Blackbeard (McShane) with Angelica as his first mate and a crew of zombies that he controls through voodoo. Soon, all parties involved engage in a series of sword fights, ship battles and, oh yeah, run afoul of mermaids – beautiful sirens from the ocean that transform into vicious creatures.

Thankfully, the two weakest elements from the first three films – Keira Knightley and Orlando Bloom – have been removed and replaced by a much stronger actress with Penelope Cruz who proves to be an ideal foil for Johnny Depp’s Captain Jack as Angelica is just as cunning and resourceful a pirate. Veteran character actor Ian McShane looks like he’s having a blast as the film’s heavy, giving the right amount of menace to his take on Blackbeard. The always enjoyable Geoffrey Rush is back as the scheming Barbossa. That leaves Depp who, it seems, has finally graduated from the interesting, quirky roles in unusual films that he made his name on in the late 1980’s and all through the 1990’s, to working on safe, big budget Hollywood films. He’s found his niche character with Jack that he enjoys playing and does it well, earning a hefty paycheck in the process. Depp is good in this film but hardly does anything distinctive from his performances in the other Pirates of the Caribbean films.

Director Rob Marshall does a decent job as he wisely keeps things simple when it comes to the action sequences and pours on the atmosphere for everything else for he understands that films made on this kind of massive scale are all about production design and special effects and this one is absolutely steeped in it. On Stranger Tides is easily the best Pirates of the Caribbean film since the first one – of course, that’s not saying much, but this one manages to recapture at least some of the fun that made the original such a joy to watch and that’s not bad of an accomplishment.

Special Features:

“Bloopers of the Caribbean” is an amusing collection of blown lines as the cast crack each other up.

Forced to watch as his family is executed by Italian fascists (led by a hilarious looking Mussolini wannabe), a young boy is subjected to a top secret project that transforms him into a super strong, super smart soldier for Hitler to exploit. This boy grows up to become the Red Skull (Paulin), a grotesque-looking tyrant. However, a female Italian scientist manages to escape and shares her knowledge with the United States government. They decide to create their own Super Soldier program, headed by Lieutenant Colonel Louis (Nouri). Steve Rogers (Salinger), stricken with polio (we know this because he walks with a pronounced limp), volunteers to become the project’s first guinea pig.

The experiment is a success but the female scientist is killed by a Nazi spy and, in turn, dispatched by a newly transformed Rogers. Dubbed Captain America by his superiors, he’s quickly brought into active duty as Lt. Col. Louis drops him in behind enemy lines where he wages a one man assault on the Red Skull’s top secret Nazi base. In battle, the Red Skull bests Cap and straps our hero to a rocket bound for the White House but ol’ Winghead manages to redirect it to Alaska (?!) where he’s buried in ice and snow for several decades.

In the intervening years, the Red Skull has undergone extensive plastic surgery to make himself like somewhat human (although, his face looks like a jumbled up jigsaw puzzle) and has built up a powerful international cartel comprised of rich and influential businessmen, politicians and high ranking military brass. He’s also kept busy over the years orchestrating the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King. Meanwhile, some researchers stumble across Cap’s frozen body. He breaks out of his icy prison and resumes his pursuit of the Red Skull.

The first thing that strikes one about Captain America is its modest budget, which limits the film’s scope and gives the various sets a cheap, made-for-T.V. look. It also explains the casting of little known actor Matt Salinger as Cap and then surrounding him with veteran character actors like Ned Beatty and Ronny Cox. The screenplay, by Stephen Tolkin, is pretty awful with the Red Skull spouting cheesy bad guy dialogue (it doesn’t help that actor Scott Paulin adopts an outrageous accent) while an environmental subplot is awkwardly shoehorned into the story. It quickly becomes obvious why this film was relegated to obscurity back in the day and promptly forgotten.

Special Features:

Theatrical trailer.

It must also be said that the transfer of this film is shockingly poor. It looks like a VHS copy of the film was simply burned onto a DVD.

We meet Rayne (Malthe) helping out a group of resistance fighters, led by a man known as Nathaniel (Fletcher), attack a Nazi train depot looking for weapons and instead finding prisoners of war. She kills and a feeds on their Commandant, Ekart Brand (Pare) and inadvertently turns him into a vampire like herself, able to survive in sunlight. The Nazis have an experiment-happy doctor (Howard) go to work on Brand with the goal of making Hitler immortal by injecting him with vampire blood.

Ever the canny opportunist, director Uwe Boll certainly knows what sells with blood-splattered action sequences and the voluptuous Rayne engaging in a lesbian love scene with a prostitute in a bordello. As is common with all of his films, the acting ranges from competent to subpar with veteran actors like Clint Howard and Michael Pare dutifully collecting a paycheck. The dialogue is functional at best and mostly kills time between action sequences. Whereas as the first BloodRayne film (2006) had the kitschy charm of seeing the likes of Ben Kingsley, Michael Madsen and Meatloaf hamming it up with pulpy dialogue, the third installment suffers from the law of diminishing returns and instead we have the likes of Howard and Pare doing their best to sell the film’s bland dialogue.

At best, BloodRayne: The Third Reich is a silly bit of alternate history hokum as the Nazis hope vampirism will help make them the master race. Is this Boll’s version of Inglorious Basterds (2009)? If so, it is a mighty pale imitation. That being said, the action sequences are fairly well-executed and appropriately visceral with plenty of the red stuff splashing about. BloodRayne probably won’t win Boll any new fans but it is a harmless time waster that should be a SyFy Channel staple in no time.

Special Features:

“Making of BloodRayne: The Third Reich” is a fairly amusing look at the mad methods of Uwe Boll and the cast and crew that love him. Clearly the actors are aware of the kind of film they’re doing and don’t take it too seriously. Say what you will about Boll but he comes across as a savvy filmmaker who knows what he wants.

In “Interview with the Writer,” Michael Nachoff talks about his work on the film. He did a little bit of historical research but basically saw Rayne as a gunslinger akin to Clint Eastwood in Unforgiven (1992). Nachoff also talks about his writing routine, rewriting, and so on.

Also included are the official and alternate trailers.

Finally, there is an audio commentary by director Uwe Boll and writer Michael Nachoff. As you would imagine, Boll dominates the track and does not disappoint. He always envisioned a trilogy with this film set in World War II much like the video game. Unlike the Underworld and Resident Evil films, Boll didn’t want to simply repeat what he had done before and instead tackle different genres with each installment. Not afraid to speak his mind, the director dishes on the two lead actors hooking up during filming and why he couldn’t cast Kristanna Loken (she wanted too much money) in this film. He also criticizes the tough working conditions on all three films (i.e. a drunken Michael Madsen on the first one and a train station blowing up in the second one) on this admittedly amusing and entertaining track.

It is 1332 A.D. and the Crusades have been raging for years. Behmen of Bleiruck (Cage) and his friend Felson (Perlman) are Teutonic knights who fight together through a series of battles. They become disillusioned with the cause after killing women and children during a siege on a city. They end up deserting their army and strike out their own, witnessing the Black Plague that has gripped Europe. However, their past catches up with them and they are soon arrested. The Cardinal D’Ambroise (Lee) offers them a job: take a young girl (Foy) accused of being a witch, and whom they claim brought on the Black Plague, to monks that can lift the curse. They agree and enlist the help of a disgraced merchant (Graham) to guide them to the abbey.

Behmen initially feels sympathy for the girl and doubts that she is actually a witch but during the course of their journey, she does things, like cloud their minds, exhibit superhuman strength and summon a pack of wolves that certainly supports the belief she’s a witch. The perilous journey they make, including a white-knuckle crossing across a decrepit old wooden bridge, evokes a medieval version of The Wages of Fear (1953).

Nicolas Cage and Ron Perlman play well off each other and their relationship is easily the best thing about Season of the Witch. Cage is the noble hero while Perlman is his sarcastic sidekick. Both play battle-hardened veteran knights burnt out from seeing too much death and killing. The two actors do an excellent job of conveying two men who have fought together for many years, which results in a believable shorthand between them.

Dominic Sena does a nice job of creating a grim, foreboding atmosphere with help from a grungy production design that vividly recreates the time period of the Crusades. He helps raise Season of the Witch a notch above a SyFy movie of the week. It is by no means a train wreck of a film but there is nothing about it that is all that extraordinary either.

Special Features:

There are six deleted scenes and the unrated prologue. One scene adds voiceover narration to give more backstory. There is more footage of a virtually unrecognizable Christopher Lee as the plague-disfigured Cardinal. This footage explains too much or adds little to the film and was rightly cut. The unrated prologue is a little more graphic and was toned down for a PG-13 rating.

“Becoming the Demon” examines the climactic sequence and how it was achieved through CGI thanks to Tippett Studio who came up with two looks for the demon.

“On A Crusade” takes a look at how they shot the epic battles during the Crusades montage. The great Vic Armstrong was brought in to stage the fights.

There is an alternate ending which is less reliant on demonic monster imagery, which I actually prefer over the one in the final cut.

Finally, there is a theatrical trailer.

The original two Superman movies, unknown to many, were actually filmed back to back, so assured were Warner Brothers that the first movie would be successful. They were on pretty safe ground mind you, considering they had a cast that included Marlon Brando, Terrence Stamp and Gene Hackman – these guys wouldn’t put their names to just anything.

The first Superman exists on this Blu-Ray set in different formats, with the option of watching a full, extended version or even a version devoid of dialogue and sound effects, so you can really appreciate the music of John Williams – possibly the greatest film music composer of all time. The extended version of the film does make the movie drag on considerably (especially considering the original Superman was a lengthy film anyway) and contains additional scenes from the Superman and Lois flight sequence, more scenes from Krypton before the planet exploded and even a scene where Superman seeks his father’s advice on showing off.

As good as the first Superman movie is, and it is good, it’s the second film where the franchise really gets going. There are few movies where the sequel is arguably better than the original, Godfather II, Empire Strikes Back for example, but Superman II is without question one of them. Superman II is all love story, much like George Lucas’ second Star Wars instalment, set against the backdrop of an impending crisis. The three super-villains, imprisoned in the Phantom Zone, have escaped and are heading to Earth to rule. Terrence Stamp, as General Zod, is in imperial form and seems to be loving every second of it. Gene Hackman returns in even more evil and despicable mode than he was in the first film, attempting to ally himself with the evil trio and the final climactic battle between Superman and the evil super-villains, that takes the whole film to build up to, doesn’t disappoint – even if there is an awful lot of product placement during the battle for brands such as Coca Cola, KFC and Marlborough.

The moment where the evil super-villains are in the Daily Planet office and newspapers heralding Superman’s disappearance are blown away by a returning Superman, asking General Zod if he would ‘care to step outside’ is a classic moment of cinema.

One thing that has always bugged me about the Superman universe, from The Adventures of Lois and Clark, to Smallville, to Superman Returns is the way in which Clark Kent is portrayed. Dean Caine once stated that he hated the way that Christopher Reeve portrayed Clark as a bumbling fool. Therefore, he played Clarke and Superman in exactly the same way. This theme of blandness was carried through by Tom Welling and Brandon Routh, both of whom insisted that Clark Kent was a suave character exactly the same as Superman. It’s for this reason that it’s Christopher Reeve’s performance as Clark, not as Superman, that he should be best remembered for.

Reeve was an excellent Clark Kent, with comic timing and slapstick ability in spades. One of the standout moments for me, besides the opening of Superman III with the battery operated toys, was the subtlety with which Reeve changed his stance in Superman II when he revealed himself to Lois as being Superman. His gawky, slightly hunched stance that was Kent was replaced by the upright, boy-scout styled stance of Superman.

It’s subtleties like these that other actors to the role seem to have completely missed, making Christopher Reeve the definitive Kent and Superman.

While we’re on the subject of the leads, something which grated on me about the first, and to a lesser extent the second, Superman movies is the character of Lois Lane. She is supposed to be this strong willed, forthright woman who knows what she wants and knows how to get it. Yet, for some reason, Margot Kidder plays Lois as a bit of screamer. Even when she’s defying the mugger in the first Superman she kicks out at his gun before turning away and screaming. Her attempts to free herself from the car as it is buried under dirt at the end of the film, and her attempts to escape the helicopter precariously perched atop the Daily Planet building both involve copious amounts of screaming for help.

These are not the actions of a strong willed woman, and certainly differ from the way Kate Bosworth played Lois in Superman Returns.

Superman III and Superman IV The Quest for Piece follow on from the first two (we say that because, like Terminator Salvation, Superman Returns seems to pick up where Superman II left off – ignoring the later films). Superman III, despite a few dodgy moments with some computer graphics (it’s always hard for films of this era to use computers considering how far advanced they have become in the last decade) is a thoroughly enjoyable movie. Richard Prior, one of the biggest comedians at the time and usual film cohort of Gene Wilder, is hilarious and Robert Vaughan seems to relish the role as an evil businessman intent on taking over the world.

The scene where Clark battles Superman in the junkyard is compelling, and has one of those spine tingling moments than run rampant through the first two movies.

Superman IV however is a tragic let down. The film seems to use the same footage over and over again (over Superman flying towards the camera) merely changing the blue screen background, and it’s full of plot holes. We can accept that Superman can breathe in space, fair enough, but Lacy Warfield (Mariel Hemingway)? The shot of Superman holding Lacy while in space is even used as the image for the Blu-Ray menu, which is actually one grumble I have with the set; the menus haven’t really had any love applied to them at all, they’re very basic – which is a shame when you consider what is possible with Blu-Ray menu systems.

Finally we have Superman Returns. This film received a fair bit of criticism when it was released, but unfairly in my opinion. The decision to keep the original intro sequence was inspired, and using footage of Marlon Brando was genius. Brandon Routh was no Reeve, for sure, but Kevin Spacey was a more than capable replacement for Gene Hackman and the effects were first class. The ‘return’ sequence of Superman saving the place from crashing into the baseball stadium, holding it up while stood on the pitcher’s mound, was iconic and, as I’ve mentioned earlier in this review, I thought Kate Bosworth did a much better job as Lois than Margot Kidder.

To be honest, no matter what special features were included, what the menus were like or even what the packaging was like, this set would be worth it solely for Superman II – for my money the best superhero movie to date (though Batman Begins runs it close!).

You can win a copy of the Superman Motion Picture Anthology right here on WhatDVD.Net

The film begins with John Milton (Cage) literally escaping from hell in a badass muscle car. He is trying to avenge his daughter’s murder and rescue her kidnapped baby from Jonah King (Burke), the sadistic leader of a satanic cult. In the first five minutes, Milton totals a pick-up truck with three flunkies in a way that is so gloriously and stylishly over-the-top that it would make Robert Rodriguez green with envy. While his film, Machete (2010), paid homage to exploitation films, Drive Angry is one, only with A-list talent. Milton crosses paths with Piper (Heard), a tough ex-waitress who has recently broken up with her deadbeat boyfriend (Farmer in a cameo). Hot on their trail is a man known only as the Accountant (Fichtner), a dapper minion from Hell come to bring Milton back.

Inspired by another cartoonish action film, Shoot ‘Em Up (2007), Drive Angry also features a gun battle while the protagonist is having sex only captured in slow motion and cheekily scored to “You Want the Candy” by the Raveonettes. While excessively violent and gory, the action sequences are all so overtly stylish that they can’t be taken too seriously. This film is akin to a blood-drenched, R-rated cartoon. The violence isn’t cruel and mean-spirited like in a torture porn horror film, but rather gleefully petulant like the guys who orchestrated all of this mayhem grew up reading Fangoria in the ‘80s.

Surrounded by all of this garish style and crazed violence, Nicolas Cage wisely underplays his role, going for the calm, collected man of action. He’s matched up perfectly with the always watchable William Fichtner who seems to be channeling Christopher Walken with his wonderfully eccentric performance. He looks to be having an absolute blast with this role and steals every scene he’s in with his unfailingly polite yet very lethal character. Billy Burke is suitably sinister as a religious fanatic and the beautiful Amber Heard holds her own as a two-fisted, curse-like-a-sailor sidekick to Cage’s undead avenger. David Morse even shows up using his considerable skill as an actor to make a chunk of exposition dialogue palatable.

Drive Angry has everything you could want from a trashy action film: cool muscle cars, over-the-top shoot-outs, larger than life baddies, and a cool good guy with a mission. All of this is handled ably by Lussier in what is easily his most accomplished film to date. He gleefully sticks a middle finger in the face of political correctness with a film that is more entertaining than it had any right to be. Cage needs to do more films like this and Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009), which harken back to the eccentric characters he played early on in his career.

Special Features:

There is an audio commentary by director Patrick Lussier and co-screenwriter Todd Farmer. Lussier jokingly refers to Drive Angry as his “subtle, gentle road movie,” and battles through a bad case of laryngitis, which makes it difficult, at times, to understand what he’s trying to say. But he soldiers on with Farmer as they talk about how the film was made. The two men tell all kinds of filming anecdotes as they talk us through filming. Lussier points out that Clint Eastwood’s protagonist in High Plains Drifter (1973) was the model for Cage’s character. They give shout-outs to various crew members’ contributions on this solid track.

“How To: Drive Angry” is one of the better promotional featurettes. Amazingly, the studio gave the filmmakers the creative freedom to do a hard R-rated supernatural action film. They talk about shooting in 3D as opposed to converting it in post-production. The filmmakers also talk about working with a modest budget and solving certain problems creatively as opposed to throwing a lot of money at it a la Michael Bay. It’s nice to see that many of the stunts in the film were done practically.

“Milton’s Mayhem” is an amusing extra that compiles all of Milton’s action sequences and attributes a point system to every punch and gunshot like something out of a video game.

Finally, there are two deleted scenes with optional commentary by Lussier and Farmer. We see a little more with Piper and her boyfriend and another scene with the Accountant that were both rightly cut.

The film’s prologue introduces us to Statham’s character – Arthur Bishop, a hitman who kills his targets and makes their deaths look like accidents – with the kind no-nonsense efficiency we’ve come to expect from his films. When he’s not killing guys, Arthur listens to classical music and has sex with his favorite prostitute in New Orleans. His employer (Goldwyn) hires him to kill his mentor (Sutherland) for botching a job but it all seems a little too convenient. After Arthur kills him, he crosses paths with the man’s ne’er-do-well son Steve (Foster) who thinks that his father was killed by carjackers (that’s how Arthur made it look). Understandably upset and lacking any direction in life, Steve asks Arthur to teach him all he knows and, wracked with guilt, Arthur grudgingly agrees.

Not surprisingly, Steve’s inexperience hinders him initially. In a rather brutal sequence, he stupidly tries to take out a target utilizing his own rough-around-the-edges technique instead of the way Arthur instructed and he barely survives the bloody and brutal fight. The Mechanic builds to a predictable conflict between Arthur and his employer as the latter ends up betraying the former – much carnage ensues.

Jason Statham can do this kind of role in his sleep and plugs along gamely with the same kind of grim determination he instills in all of his characters while Ben Foster almost invests too much in his role, grunging himself down as the unlikable apprentice to Statham’s ruthless assassin. It’s like the filmmakers took Steve from a much better film and plugged him into this one. Foster gives Steve a surprisingly amount of emotional depth and complexity. He single-handedly makes The Mechanic worth watching whenever he’s on-screen.

The filmmakers enjoy rubbing our faces a little too much in this ugly world where all the targets are disgusting human beings – pedophiles, religious zealots and drug dealers – so that we don’t feel bad when they are killed in brutally awful ways. The one prominent female character’s (if you can call her that) sole purpose in the film is to service Arthur sexually. Lewis John Carlino and Richard Wenk’s screenplay, while lean and mean, leaves too many loose ends and unanswered questions, chief among them Steve’s true motivations. However, in this case, the ambiguity surprisingly works and feels more authentic instead of spelling it all out, but I think this is due more to Foster’s performance than the script itself. In its own brutally efficient way, The Mechanic delivers all the requisite action you would expect along with Simon West’s stylish direction.

Special Features:

There are five deleted and extended scenes. Included is slightly more action in the film’s prologue, which was unnecessary and rightly excised. There is also more of Arthur and his mentor meeting in a diner, which fleshes out their relationship more but also spells things out a little too much.

Finally, there is “Tools of the Trade: Inside the Action,” a making of featurette. Statham says he was drawn to the smart script. We see footage of the action star performing his own stunts, including jumping off a 35 floor building! Not to be outdone, Foster did it as well, despite his fear of heights. We also see him do his big fight scene with an injured shoulder. It is good to see that no CGI was involved in the film’s impressively staged stunts.