Family Business

By J.C.

THE MECHANIC

Directed by MICHAEL WINNER

Screenplay by LEWIS JOHN CARLINO

In Mafia patois a mechanic is a hit man. The titular mechanic of this misshapen thriller is Arthur Bishop (Charles Bronson), a name so bland that we must assume the producers were at pains to appease antidefamation groups of virtually every nationality. Bishop is a psychopathic Mr. Fixit, flawlessly efficient at doing in whoever has fallen out of favor with his employers. Emotionless, a loner, Bishop spends hours studying his quarry.

The first part of the movie, which concentrates mostly on Bishop's devices for dispatching his victims, is the best--cold, fast and intricate. Pretty soon, after murdering a Hollywood businessman, Bishop decides to be friend the man's son (Jan-Michael Vincent) and even to tutor him in all the tricks of the profession. The kid has his own personal reasons for playing the star pupil.

Unfortunately Winner (The Jokers) directs with easily detectable indifference. Bronson, at least, is better here than as the key informant in The Valachi Papers because he has less to say and more to do. Vincent looks throughout as if he had just received a humiliating score on an IQ test. When, at one point, he is called upon to say "I live inside my head," we know that he is talking about a vacant room.

J.C.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.