Bible Based Movie Review: Mechanic: Resurrection

This Review Reveals Minor Details About the Plot.

Unsettled Retirement

Plot Overview

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. “Mr. Santos”, aka Arthur Bishop (Jason Statham), awakes in his cabin surrounded by modern ship's instruments. He plays a vinyl record then ambles out to the dock to greet the glorious day … but not without arming his alarm system. As the saying goes, “Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not after you.”

He's joined at his lunch table by a mystery babe (Yayaying Rhatha Phongam) who complains to “Mr. Santos” that after “five months in Brazil, you're a hard man to find.” She paraphrases Mark Twain, “Reports of your demise have been greatly exaggerated.” She represents a principal who wants to hire him to kill three men and make the hits look like accidents. There's a bit of a dustup as he refuses her offer, then he burns his bridges behind him and quits Brazil.

He lands in Koh Lipe, Southern Thailand where he's greeted under the name “Fisher” by a female friend Mei (Michelle Yeoh) who has been maintaining his bungalow for him in his absence. An alluring woman Gina (Jessica Alba) washes ashore having been blackmailed into enlisting Bishop to take the job. An old crony of his, Riah Crain (Sam Hazeldine), with whom there is some bad blood, wants him to eliminate a warlord Krill (Femi Elufowoju Jr.), a trafficker Adrian Cook (Toby Eddington), and a subversive Max Adams (Tommy Lee Jones). Plenty of action follows with shifting loyalties.

Ideology

The action belies the fundamentals of romance, which if you see movies for it, this one is a treasure trove. The age-old scheme is that a fellow meets a lot of eligible women (and vice versa)—see Esther 2:2-4—, he dates the ones he likes—Esther 2:14—, and he marries the one he loves supremely—Esther 2:17. In Rio for five months, Bishop has mastered the language. he has lots of money, he lives on a yacht in the marina, he's got plenty of time to kill, he's fit, a good swimmer, and he's got rugged good looks. Should have plenty of women, I'd say; they give him the eye, but instead of checking them out, he marks the henchmen disguised as tourists populating the restaurant up by Sugarloaf Mountain where he goes to eat. The babe he meets there tries to kill him.

On a Thai island his prospects improve with a date. In the movie “Say Anything” some recent high school grads defined a date as “prearrangement, with the possibility of love.” The Book of Esther shows the origin of dating when Queen Esther made a lunch date with the king. Prearrangement resulted in a plan change when the king unable to sleep the night before had some court records read to him and so was kept from a folly. The possibility of love was represented when Haman tried to bond with Esther at the lunch to get her to intercede on his behalf. Thus a date embodies the two greatest commandments: to love God with all one's being giving him opportunity to intercede in our affairs by our prearranging the meeting, and physically bonding with one's date to best understand him and treat him with love of neighbor. In our movie there was prearrangement when Gina was sent to allure Bishop and he got onto her. The possibility of love occurred when they held hands on the beach to give their observers a show.

This circumstantial coupling came into focus when they entered a hut during a marriage ceremony and Mei ties them together with a ribbon, saying, ‘All couples [here] must be tied together.’ Both of them protested, “But we're not a couple.” They were tied together anyway. That is similar to the more familiar awkward goodbye kiss on a first date, as has been written about by anthropologist Desmond Morris (well known for his book The Naked Ape): (247)

There are changes in the sequence, resulting from set social conventions. The goodnight-kiss ritual can bring this form of intimacy forward in the sequence considerably, just as accepting an invitation to dance can bring forward a waist embrace to an early stage in courtship.

In “Mechanic 2” the couple indeed dances at the wedding, and the forwarding of the sexual sequence by the attendant waist embrace leads to greater things. If indeed their date had ended with but the mandatory kiss good-night, which I recommend, their virtue would have been maintained. The Hollywood date ending of open negotiations, however, is more likely to result in them "getting lucky."

What about Mei tying them in ribbons after they'd said they weren't a couple? Doesn't that violate the premise that no means no? Psychologist Henry Roediger writes, “Language communicates meaning, but meaning is not in words and sentences. Meaning is constructed in the mind. … People do not comprehend language in a vacuum. … Language comprehension requires generating, inferring, and consolidating meaning from speech or language, guided by knowledge of the world and the context of language. ¶“The context in which one hears or reads something greatly affects how language is understood. … ¶“Context aids language because people base conversations on shared topics and understanding the listener's point of view. Thus new information is related to previous statements and comprehended according to relations among sentences” (300ff). This couple was indeed a couple, though they were slow to realize it. Their protestations could be ignored. Earlier when errand boy Frank had transported Gina on a boat and he was abusing her, and she was screaming, well, that couldn't be ignored.

Friendship leads to romance.

Dating relations are independent.

Now, some people feel that they should develop a deep friendship with a member of the opposite sex before letting the relationship get physical at all. Look at the logistics of such a scheme.

Proverb 18:24 says, “A man that hath friends must show himself friendly.” Since friendship incurs obligations, the closer the friendship, the more the obligation. But our capabilities to fulfill obligations have human limits. Therefore humanly speaking, the more intimate the friendship, the fewer the friends. In Bishop's case he was able to befriend one in three of his targets, for the exchange of benefits. Furthermore, he had a strongbox full of passports from various countries, each presumably associated with a friend in-country he could count on. Still, would he risk any one of them, say Mei by trying to convert her into his girlfriend when that would introduce an untested element jeopardizing the whole friendship—witness what happened to Gina and Frank once they were together on the boat. Bishop is better off starting afresh with not so much to risk.

The rest of the proverb says, (Prov 18:24) “and there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.” That's talking about boyfriend–girlfriend relations, as Bishop and Gina were referred to multiple times in the movie. Bishop and Crain were brother orphans from the same orphanage, with no love lost between them, “'Cause I got out and you didn't; and here we are again.” They were trying to chain each other to a sinking ship. But Bishop and Gina, boyfriend & girlfriend, were tied together with ribbons looking out for each other's safety at the expense of one's own.

Production Values

This film, “” (2016) is technically “Mechanic 2” but retitled “Resurrection” because Bishop has been resurrected from the dead. It is the sequel to the first Jason Statham “Mechanic” (2011) itself a remake of the 1972 film “The Mechanic” in which Statham inherited Arthur Bishop's role of hired assassin from the late Charles Bronson. This latest was directed by Dennis Gansel. Its screenplay was written by Philip Shelby and Tony Mosher using story development by Rachel Long, Philip Shelby, and Brian Pittman, based on the characters created by Lewis John Carlino. It stars Jason Statham, Jessica Alba, Tommy Lee Jones, and Michelle Yeoh. Because of the wobbly scripting, the performances aren't particularly great. The actors are not to blame, but the writers and director. Character development in this movie is minimal, and none of them except Tommy Lee Jones is even remotely interesting. Even though Jones has a key part as one of the Mechanic's marks, his part is too small for his deserving name. And why cast Jessica Alba? She did okay, but she wasn't particularly compelling and had little chemistry with Statham, which was the fundamental point of her part.

MPAA rated it R for violence throughout, some sexual content—but no nudity—, and language. The action is very fast paced but the plot is easy to keep up with. There are lots of exotic locations from all over the world in it. The CGI is subpar, and the movie does a lot of situational borrowing. It's about all one would expect, with no major flaws.

Review Conclusion w/ Christian Recommendation

This one serves up heavy doses of action with a concurrent basic romantic subplot. If these are your expectations, it delivers well enough. Don't look for memorable moments, though.

Movie Ratings

Action factor: Edge of your seat action-packed. Suitability For Children: Not Suitable for Children of Any Age. Special effects: Well done special effects. Video Occasion: Good Date Movie. Suspense: Keeps you on the edge of your seat. Overall product rating: Four stars out of five.