The Mechanic (1972)

          Taken solely for its surface pleasures, The Mechanic is a handsomely made thriller with an unusual amount of detail given to the preparations hitmen take before doing bad things—at certain points, it almost seems like a documentary. Combined with enigmatically tight-lipped performances by star Charles Bronson and supporting player Jan-Michael Vincent, director Michael Winner’s clinical approach makes for a unique (and uniquely nihilistic) viewing experience. Yet learning about the film’s origins adds interesting dimensions. Writer Lewis John Carlino, who based the script on his own unfinished novel, apparently envisioned the story with a gay angle, exploring the dynamic between an avaricious apprentice and a world-weary mentor. Alas, overt references to this approach were excised, and in fact the apprentice and mentor characters are portrayed as being aggressively heterosexual. Given these behind-the-scenes negotiations about thematic content, however, it’s possible to watch The Mechanic simply as a he-man story—or to look deeper for something kinky beneath the surface.

          In any event, Bronson stars as Arthur Bishop, a methodical killer who makes his murders-for-hire look like accidents. Around the time he accepts an important contract from a group of organized criminals, Bishop inherits an unlikely trainee, Steve McKenna (Vincent). Among the most interesting elements of the film is a pair of mirrored scenes featuring these men with the women in their lives; Bishop’s girl is a prostitute (Jill Ireland) whom he pays to simulate a personal bond, and McKenna’s is a troubled hippie (Linda Ridgeway), with whom McKenna plays insidious mind games during the movie’s darkest scene. (Revealing exactly how Bishop and McKenna become allies would require giving away too much of the plot.) About half the picture takes place in Europe, where Bishop and McKenna fulfill a challenging contract, only to realize they’ve been set up for a double-cross. The betrayals pile up until an unusually hard-hitting ending.

          Winner, a frequent Bronson collaborator, shoots the film with precision, accentuating physical environments that convey more about characters than the characters themselves are willing to say; he also stages action expertly, creating tension against a grim backdrop of pervasive hopelessness. His careful treatment of brutal material gives The Mechanic a strange kind of macho integrity—and because Bronson and Vincent give such contained performances, it’s possible to project interesting psychological implications onto their blank faces. So while The Mechanic isn’t high art by any measure, it’s not a mindless thrill ride, either.

The Mechanic: GROOVY

Telefon (1977)

          Built around a fun premise but suffering from humdrum execution and lifeless leading performances, this Cold War thriller plays with the provocative notion of “sleeper” agents, international operatives brainwashed into acting like normal people until exposure to code words triggers their lethal training. Specifically, the story begins when KGB bad guy Nicolai Dalchimsky (Donald Pleasance) leaves the U.S.S.R. for America and brings along the codebook for a program called “Telefon.” Activating long-dormant killers who wreak havoc on U.S. targets, Dalchimsky is an anarchist bent on provoking a war. In response, Soviet overlords send KGB tough guy Major Grigori Borzov (Charles Bronson) to America, where he goes undercover to track down and stop Dalchimsky. Tasked with aiding Borzov is a Russian mole living as an American, codenamed “Barbara” (Lee Remick).

          Based on a novel by Walter Wager and written for the screen by highly capable thriller specialists Peter Hyams and Stirling Silliphant, Telefonshould work, but the casting is problematic. Bronson is so harsh and stoic that it’s hard to accept him playing the romantic-hero rhythms of the Borzov role, and while it’s a relief that the leading lady isn’t Bronson’s real-life bride, Jill Ireland, who costarred in a large number of his ’70s movies, Remick seems highly disconnected from Bronson; any hope of chemistry between the leading characters probably ended the first time Bronson and Remick played a scene together.

          Another problem is that the film’s director, Don Siegel, was slipping into decline. After his respectable career in B-movies enjoyed a huge late-’60s/early-’70s boost thanks to a vibrant collaboration with Clint Eastwood, Siegel was apparently suffering health problems by the late ’70s. (It’s long been rumored that Eastwood did a lot of the directing on Siegel’s next picture, 1979’s terrific Escape from Alcatraz.) Whatever the cause, however, the result is the same—Telefon feels more like a generic TV movie than a big-budget feature, thanks to flat acting and perfunctory camerawork. So even though the twisty story has a few enjoyable moments, and even though Pleasance is weirdly beguiling as always, watching Telefon becomes a chore by the time the plot gets contrived toward the climax.

Telefon: FUNKY

Mr. Majestyk (1974)

          Despite his enviable literary reputation, Elmore Leonard’s output can get awfully pulpy, with his storied character flourishes and dialogue taking a backseat to humdrum, plot-driven violence. For instance, the Charles Bronson thriller Mr. Majestyk, which Leonard adapted from his own novel of the same name, has a few eccentric details—not many action heroes make their living growing watermelons, as the title character of this flick does—but in general the storyline is a compendium of chases, fights, and shoot-outs. So while the movie is enjoyable in an undemanding sort of way, it’s hardly memorable.

          As often happens in Leonard’s fiction, the narrative revolves around a self-suffiicient badass who’d rather avoid trouble but has no problem surmounting enemies if a hassle arises. Colorado watermelon farmer Vince Majestyk (Bronson) quarrels with local hoodlum Bobby Kopas (Paul Koslo), who wants Majestyk to hire Bobby’s workers so Bobby can earn kickbacks. Majestyk refuses, giving Bobby a humiliating beat-down to drive the point home, so Bobby presses charges and gets Majestyk arrested. Thus, Majestyk ends up on a prisoner-transfer bus with Frank Renda (Al Lettieri), a fearsome Mafia hitman. When Renda’s cronies assault the bus to rescue their pal, Majestyk hijacks the bus—with Renda inside—hoping to trade the convict for leverage with the police, because he wants Bobby’s trumped-up charges dismissed. Understandably, this behavior puts Majestyk on the bad side of bad people, so the aforementioned chases, fights, and shoot-outs ensue. (The movie also features a perfunctory love story between Majestyk and a Latino labor leader, played by Linda Cristal.)

          Bronson suits this material well, obviously, since he spent most of his career playing tight-lipped tough guys, but the movie’s impact would have deepened if Bronson had been pitted against more formidable opponents—the bad guys in Mr. Majestyk make so many foolish choices they seem like buffoons compared to the methodical title character. Director Richard Fleischer, as always, contributes impersonal but solid work that conveys the intensity inherent to Leonard’s story, and some of the action scenes are exciting, but it says a lot that the movie’s most dynamic scene is a vignette of mobsters annihilating a pile of watermelons with machine-gun fire.

Mr. Majestyk: FUNKY

Hard Times (1975)

          A lean action drama about an enigmatic tough guy who drifts into the lives of several low-rent characters and has a profound impact, Hard Timesborrows a lot, stylistically and thematically, from the cinematic iconography that director John Ford and actor John Wayne developed together. Making his directorial debut, Walter Hill emulates Ford’s elegant but unfussy visual style; similarly, leading man Charles Bronson deomonstrates tight-lipped adherence to a manly code of honor. So, even though there’s a lot of macho hokum on display here—we’re never particularly worried that the hero will lose any of the bare-knuckle boxing matches he enters—Hill effectively taps into the primal themes that made the Ford-Wayne pictures of the past so enjoyable.

          Bronson stars as Chaney, a drifter who wanders into Depression-era Louisiana and encounters Speed (James Coburn), a fast-talking fight promoter. Speed belongs to a network of men who stage illicit bare-knuckle boxing brawls, and Chaney offers his services as a new fighter—quickly proving his mettle by dropping his first opponent with one punch. Although Chaney is a good 20 years older than most men working the ring, he’s in spectacular physical condition and he sparks tremendous curiosity by withholding details about his background. Speed reluctantly agrees to Chaney’s terms (management without a long-term commitment), and Chaney soon lands on the radar of Chick Gandi (Michael McGuire), a successful entrepreneur who lords over the New Orleans fight circuit. Exacerbated by Speed’s bad habit of accruing gambling debts, Chaney’s rise sets the stage for an inevitable showdown between Chaney and Gandi’s chosen fighter.

          Rewriting an original script by Bryan Gindoff and Bruce Henstell, Hill employs incredibly terse dialogue (in one of Bronson’s best scenes, he only says one word: “dumb”), and the director keeps motivations obvious and pragmatic—a Spartan approach that suits the Depression milieu. Bronson benefits tremendously from Hill’s restraint, since the actor is more impressive simply occupying the camera frame than spewing reams of dialogue.  Hill wisely contrasts Bronson with a pair of actors who speak beautifully: Coburn is charming and pathetic as a self-destructive schemer, and Strother Martin is wonderfully eccentric as a drug-addicted doctor enlisted to support Chaney during fights. Bronson’s real-life wife, Jill Ireland, appears somewhat inconsequentially as Chaney’s no-nonsense love interest, though Hard Times is a such a guy movie that all the female players are sidelined. Ultimately, Hard Times is somewhat predictable and shallow—but it’s executed so well those shortcomings don’t matter much.

Hard Times: GROOVY