Finally after 4 days in the head office outside Jakarta, I got the chance to entertain myself and forget a bit about the hectic condition at the office. A Jason Statham new movie that just premiered on Friday seemed to be the best bet for night entertainment. Lucky my wife was not having anything on her schedule that day so she was able to go to the mall and bought the tickets for the night (usually such film on first day premier would have its seats emptied very fast or the very least only left with non strategic places). Leaving office at 5.30 enabled me to reach the location early and could be in the theater in time to see several new trailers. Movie started around 5 minutes latter than the supposed time. So let's get on to the movie.
Brief Story Line
Movie opened with the scene of Arthur Bishop (Statham - The Transporter trilogy, Fast and Furious 7 and so many other action films) currently staying in a boat in Rio, Brazil after retiring as contract killer. However his retirement was cut short when a lady seemed to know about his past and stated that her employer would assign Bishop to make 3 killings & make them look like accidents just like what he normally did (these were the basic story of the original movie The Mechanic). The lady threatened Bishop to do as per her request otherwise her thugs would force him. After some fightings, Bishop was able to escape.
He went to Thailand and was met by Mei (Michelle Yeoh - Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, etc) who would later on described as someone that was helped by Bishop previously. She was keeping a safe house for Bishop. He would later find out that the messenger in Rio was working for Crain (Sam Hazeldine - The Monuments Men etc), his old friend who later became his nemesis.
On the beach the following day, through some ordeals, Bishop got to know Gina (Jessica Alba - Sin City, Fantastic Four etc) a social worker in Cambodia. They became quite close and romantically involved. When Crain finally assigned his men to capture Gina and Bishop unable to stop them, he had no choice but to go and see Crain to find out his intentions. As already mentioned in the beginning, he wanted Crain to kill 3 people and make sure they do not look like a murder. Crain threaten to kill Gina if Bishop did not fulfill these "assignments". The 3 persons were all located in difficult places to kill i.e. a warlord who was imprisoned in Malaysia's island prison, a guy who dealt with human trafficking of under age prostitutes & stayed in a 58th floor penthouse in Australia and an arms dealer who lived in a confined silo in East Europe.
So would Bishop be able to do all these killings? Would Crain honor his commitment to release Gina upon Bishop's final task? Or would Bishop go to Crain and help Gina escape? Find them in this action movie.
End of Brief Story Line
Well as far as action movie goes, this one is quite good. It has good fighting scenes involving the usual Statham fast moves and cool ways of killing bad guys. There were also some crazy stunts in the high areas like on moving cable train and some great under water actions. For such age, Statham was still able to provide those moves and then some.
In term of story line, I personally think it was not as good as the original movie. In case you were not aware, that one was a remake of 1972 movie of same title and if I remember correctly, the story was more superior than this sequel. I felt that this story was a little bit too forced, but then again, who really cares as long as Statham could still perform awesome fights scenes. This sequel also had a little aura of B class action movie, unlike the usual Statham's movies.
Tommy Lee Jones was somehow quite good playing as a bad guy in this movie. My wife said the goatee & earrings were the perfect elements. But I am a little bit disappointed with Michelle Yeoh's role in this film as she rarely did anything and I think it's a waste of her talent (at least give her a little fighting scene for God's sake!). Jessica Alba's presence was surprisingly quite good according to my personal view, while Crain was a little bit unconvincing as Statham's nemesis.
My most memorable scenes was the finale fighting with so many bad guys. There were no fun scenes in this movie and a little bit too much focus on the romantic scenes between Statham and Alba in the earlier part. For those who want to just enjoy a good old fashion action movie, I believe this one suits you just nicely as long as you forget about the story line. For those enjoying heavier movies with great acting and so on, may not be able to enjoy it and probably would complain after watching this.
So it all depends on your taste. Happy watching!
Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
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