BEFORE: Wrapping up Jason Statham week, which also turned out to be my Labor Day tribute to working class people everywhere. Yes, this went one day (and two movies) longer than planned, but how was I going to pass up on adding "The Transporter"? Anyway, it's Tuesday and I don't have to work, so this means my holiday weekend is one day longer than planned, too - so it all worked out.
Before I move on, let's hear it one more time for the people who work - the athletes, even the underground ones (13), the people in the armed forces, even the mercs ("Expend4bles"), the marine biologists and the deep-sea divers ("The Meg"), and the beekeepers and other agricultural workers ("The Beekeeper"). Let's not forget the people who deliver stuff ("The Transporter") and of course the mechanics and repair professionals ("The Mechanic"). While we're at it, let's give a shout-out to the police, fire and medical personnel, they've been prominent here while Jason Statham's characters have been causing mayhem. Yep, even the bomb squad. And the sanitation people who clean up all his messes, in one way or another.
That should just about cover it - new actor link tomorrow, but possibly the same old same old.
THE PLOT: An elite hitman teaches his trade to an apprentice who has a connection to one of his previous victims.
AFTER: Jason Statham is a hit-man again, check. And he uses all sorts of things as weapons, including guns, for once - how unusual! Check. And he's got to work his way up the villain chain to find out who's in charge of doing all the bad stuff. Why he just doesn't start at the top, I don't know. But again, check. Ooh, ooh, this time's he's got a protegé, someone to teach the craft to, that's kind of a new wrinkle, for him anyway. Yeah, this one's not too shabby, I'm glad I'm ending Statham Week with this one, it feels a bit more complex than "The Transporter", although that early Statham film from 2002, I can see why it's a classic.
It kind of makes sense (?) to show a hit-man who's so good at his job, that he can get in without being sit, pull off the hit in a way that makes it look like an accident or natural causes, and then get out again without being seen - so in the end, it's like he wasn't even there, and as a result, nobody's looking for him, because why would they be? This all supposedly comes from years of experience, and in turn that comes from making past mistakes - so over time, he learned to be ready for anything, and that has to happen in advance, which again makes sense (?) because you can't prepare for something after the fact. It all looks good on paper, I'm just not convinced that this is the way that hit-men work - but then, what the heck do I know about it?
So by way of introduction, we see Arthur Bishop get inside the mansion of a Colombian drug-lord, by dressing like the kitchen staff - who even notices them? - and then he waits at the bottom of the guy's pool, so when he takes his daily swim, Bishop makes sure that it's his last one. Then when the guards come by on patrol, he moves the dead body's arms to simulate swimming, so they don't even know the guy is dead at first. Then Bishop is out of the pool, and he's gone before anyone realizes the drug-lord is dead, like he wasn't even there.
Complications arise when Bishop is given his next target, and it's Harry McKenna, his mentor and handler. Just to be sure, he has a face-to-face meeting with the head of whatever agency or corporation they all work for, and the top guy confirms the hit. McKenna was in charge of an op that went bad in South Africa, where five assassins died, and figures that McKenna must have been the leak. So Bishop does the hit, also face-to-face, but makes it look like a car-jacking.
More complications arise when Bishop meets McKenna's son, Steve, after the funeral and realizes that in response to his father's killing, Steve starts patrolling at night to find carjackers to kill, hoping in vain to avenge his father's death. Bishop reluctantly takes Steve under his wing to train him properly in the method's of a professional hitman, so Steve's anger and thirst for vengeance will at least have an outlet. But since he himself was Harry's killer, this could be a recipe for disaster, should Steve ever find out the truth.
Steve barely survives his first hit, because he doesn't follow Bishop's instructions to the letter, he wants to skip a few steps in the training, and finds out the hard way that he's not ready to go solo, but perhaps with time. Together they take out a religious cult leader who likes really young girls, but the hit also goes wrong and they have to shoot their way out and jump out of a skyscraper the hard way to get clear. Meanwhile, Bishop's kind of in trouble with his agency for taking someone under his wing without permission. They have to split up to make it back to home base, since the police are looking for two men working together, and that's when Bishop bumps into someone from that botched South African job who's supposed to be dead, and this calls everything into question.
So the two men have to work their way up the chain of their own agency to find out who lied to them, what really happened in South Africa, and whether Harry McKenna deserved to die or if he was ever corrupt and responsible in the first place. Only then can these two men decide if they want to keep working together, or if they should split up when they disappear, or third option, maybe one needs to kill the other to stay safe, you just never know in that business, apparently. Hey, at least this one's good and twisty and it proves you can never trust your workmates or your bosses.
This one's good and twisty and it makes you root for a guy who does very bad things, which I'm guessing from all the movies this week is kind of Jason Statham's thing - but yeah, I think this one might be just a cut above. Again, as with "The Transporter", there's a sequel but if I watch it here, it's not going to connect to the rest of what I have planned for September, so I'm going to have to table both franchises for now, and maybe try to come back to them at another time. Onward and upward, four weeks until horror movie season.
Also starring Ben Foster (last seen in "Kill Your Darlings"), Tony Goldwyn (last seen in "Oppenheimer"), Donald Sutherland (last seen in "Remembering Gene Wilder"), Jeff Chase (also carrying over from "Transporter 2"), Mini Anden (last seen in "My Best Friend's Girl"), James Logan (last seen in "Ride Along"), Eddie J. Fernandez (last seen in "Haywire"), Joshua Bridgewater, John McConnell (last seen in "Colombiana"), Christa Campbell (last seen in "Cleaner'), Mark Nutter, Lara Grice (last seen in "Welcome to the Rileys"), Lance E. Nichols (last seen in "The Last Song"), JD Evermore (last seen in "Beautiful Creatures"), Ada Michelle Loridans (ditto), Linnzi Zaorski, Bill Scharpf, John Teague, David Leitch (last seen in "Bullet Train"), David Dahlgren (last seen in "I Love You Phillip Morris"), Stuart Greer (last seen in "I Know What You Did Last Summer"), Katarzyna Wolejnio (last seen in "Conan the Barbarian" (2011)), Simon West.
RATING: 7 out of 10 vinyl records (but he only ever really plays one)
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