I’m surprised at the career of Jason Statham. When he began
it appeared that he would be on a meteoric rise to stardom comparable to the
likes of Stallone and Willis. And yet while he continues to make movies at a
steady pace the results are not near the level they should be. It puzzles me
because each movie he makes has been excellent when it comes to action fare and
more so when you watch things like REVOLVER, a personal favorite of mine.
When Statham took on the challenge or recreating the role of
Arthur Bishop made famous by Charles Bronson I thought it was a perfect match.
Both men had a rough good looks and handled themselves well in action films. The
film did well and seemed to raise Statham but who would have thought a sequel
would be in the works, even more so when *SPOILER* the character dies at the
end of the film. So color me surprised when this film came out.
MERCHANIC: RESURRECTION returns Bishop to the world of the
living, taking it easy on a cabin cruiser in Rio only to find himself set upon
by an old friend turned adversary. The film opens with an operative working for
Crain, the ex-friend, telling Bishop he needs his set of skills for three
killings. If you didn’t know already, Bishop was the perfect anti-hero, a hit
man with a conscience who could make any murder seem natural. Refusing to take
the job, Bishop takes on the operative and her henchmen, escaping and heading
off to a secluded island in the South Pacific.
Under the protection of Mei (Michelle Yeoh), Bishop leads a
simple life. Then one day a woman names Gina (Jessica Alba) shows up on the
island, bruised by the brute of a man she’s sailed there with. When it appears
the man is about to kill her, Mei asks Bishop to step in. He does so ending in
the death of the man and Gina taking up residence on the island. It isn’t long
before she tells him her back story and reveals to him that she was sent by
Crain to bring him back. Not by choice though as Crain is using the school of
young girls in Cambodia where she was working as hostages. When Crain’s men
show, Bishop obliges him.
Crain tells Bishop he wants him to use his unique abilities
to take out three targets. Only giving him enough information to handle one at
a time, he first sets Bishop to a Southeast Asian island prison, an impassable
location with little hope of getting in and out of let alone killing someone
inside the prison. Let’s be serious, if this assassination failed then we’d be
watching a very short film. With each target assigned to Bishop he moves closer
to freedom for Gina, but only if he trusts Crain. He does not.
The movie works on a number of levels. To begin with Statham
does a great job of portraying the calm, cool collected character of Bishop to
the max. Bishop is all business on the surface but there is more than that cool
exterior to the man. He is a knight errant, a man with a soul who tries to
steer clear of battles that are not his but who will step forward when he sees
a damsel in distress. He can’t help himself. It adds levels that many action
starts find difficult to pull off but that Statham does with ease.
The character of Bishop is a fascinating one in the way he
works as well. Not only is he a cold killer when the need arises he is
meticulous when it comes to how he carries out his tasks. Bishop makes plans
and then goes over them again and again, looking for the cracks in the wall
that his targets all have somewhere. He uses those faults to drive a wedge in
that results in their demise. While some use just a gun in hand, Bishop uses a
pictures, calipers and high tech gadgets he can purchase anywhere in pure form
and then adapt for his needs. While Bishop has the hand to hand skills and
weapons that he uses to take out a target, it is his mind that is the deadliest
weapon he possesses.
The supporting cast here does a fine job as well but in
truth the word supporting describes them quite well. Statham takes center stage
from start to finish here. Alba does a great job in her role, showing that she’s
not a one note actress or just a pretty face. She carries off the role of Gina
quite well making her a sympathetic character caught in the middle of thigs who
falls for a man who once made a living killing people. Now his skills come into
play to help her.
The movie is rated R for language and violence. Had they
dropped out a few words my guess is it would have rated a PG-13 but action
films feel the need to have that R rating there in order to draw more viewers
or so they think. It doesn’t matter in the long run. What does matter is that Statham
has turned in another great action film that entertains from beginning to end.
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