Justin here, today we’re going to look at two movies that don’t have a whole lot to do with each other except that they’re both about hit men: Blast of Silence and The Mechanic.
As much as I try not to judge movies by their posters or cover art, I can’t help it with Criterion releases – they’re usually enticing enough to make me pick one over just about anything else. That’s how I came to Allen Baron’s great noir, Blast of Silence. I recognized the cover as being drawn by Sean Phillips, one of my favorite comics artists and the man who is responsible with Ed Brubaker for one of my favorite comics series, Criminal. Blast of Silence was so good that it exceeded my expectations of being a Criterion movie and having a bad ass cover.
In addition to directing, Baron wrote, produced, and starred in Blast of Silence. That combination allowed baron to have complete control and elevated this movie above the genre limitations that it simultaneously embraced.
Being made in 1961 this is one of the last true film noirs. But it also exudes a fierceness like a wounded animal. Visually, the closet movie it resembles is John Cassavetes’ Shadows. This is New York on a budget. Seedy, ugly, and dangerous. This is the same New York that Scorsese shot 12 years later in Mean Streets. This movie has one of the best opening shots I’ve ever seen. We’re at the front of a train going through a dark tunnel to New York. There’s a small light at the end that grows bigger as the narrator spews over-the-top Mickey Spillane hard-boiled musings. From the moment it begins, you know the main character, Frankie, is doomed.
This is one of those great movies that instead of trying to do something virtuosic with the narrative and throwing a lot of twists in, just decides to tell a simple story well. In this case, Frankie has been contracted to do a hit on a mid-level mob man. Through the rest of the movie, Frankie follows him around, plans the hit, scores a weapon to take care of him, and does the deed. Of course it’s never that easy and things are complicated personally and professionally for him as the job goes sour and Frankie runs into some old friends from the orphanage where he grew up. It’s an interesting and humanizing mood. By the time Frankie’s old friend’s show up, I had bought into his Holden Caulfield nihilism, to see him want a little more than money out of life made him a fully three-dimensional character.
My personal bias here is that I’m predisposed to crime stories and especially noir ones. I tend to let them get away with a little too much. But I don’t think I’m seeing this movie’s greatness through rose-colored glasses. Rather, I think that this is a great forgotten noir that was unfortunately made at the wrong time in history. I think that if this movie had been made 15 years earlier, it would have made a much bigger splash and perhaps Baron would have been the next John Huston.
Flash forward 11 years and we have Michael Winner’s hit man movie, The Mechanic starring Charles Bronson. The two would go on to work together on the first three Death Wish movies. This movie, however, is closer to the tone struck by the first Death Wish, it is a serious movie that portrays itself with dignity.
Like Blast of Silence, The Mechanic also has a phenomenal opening scene. We watch a long dialogue-fee segment where Bronson plans and carries out a tense hit on an unsuspecting schmuck. Crime junkies will recognize what Bronson is doing from word-go, other people will catch on as the scene progresses. It sets the stage for a brutal yet muted movie.
Bronson soon finds out that his health is declining. Where once he was perfectly capable of carrying out hits on his own, now he figures he needs a little insurance to make sure the jobs get done properly and that he gets out in one piece. He soon befriends a young man named Steve, played by Jan-Michael Vincent, who shares Bronson’s macabre views about life and humanity. Bronson trains him in the ways of the hit man. Bronson’s particular method is to psychologically profile his target and plan a kill that looks plausible and doesn’t place him in immediate harm.
The movie starts relatively grounded and as the viewer eases their suspension of disbelief moves into more action-movie territory with an extended dirt bike chase and a explosive climax with a large scale gun battle. By that point however, I was having enough fun to enjoy it for what it is even though it was in opposition to the tone set by the terse first act. The movie may come off as a little dated to some as there is the obligatory hippie-party scene required by all movies shot before 1975, and a montage in the middle of the movie between Bronson and the younger Steve was maybe a little too homoerotic. There is however, a lot here to like. From the Bronson movies I’ve seen, he seemed the most comfortable in this role. His inclination towards under-acting and not showing emotion is a good fit for a hit man. The last scene in the movie is one of the better “gotcha” moments I’ve seen.
I read that this is being re-made right now with Jason Statham playing Bronson’s part. I’m not sure that this is the best casting choice… as far as Expendibles go, I think Stallone could pull it off a little better. My biggest concern though is that the remake will have a lot of the post-action film nonsense that dragged down Expendibles from what it could have been. The Mechanic as it stands is one of the most compelling arguments against that kind of film-making that I can think of. The movie is slow and deliberate at times and compressed and quick moving when it needs to be. There’s a very real sense of danger for Bronson throughout the movie and death is taken very seriously. I’m not going to get all pious and say that The Mechanic is a great untouchable movie that deserves to be treated with Citizen Kane level reverence, but it is a movie that I enjoyed quite a bit, and one that could be cheapened to the point of parody if it isn’t played right. I’ve seen enough movies featuring dashing hit men with physics defying weapons accuracy and ultra-kinetic Michael Bay style editing to last a lifetime. The Mechanic can, and should be something better.