The Mechanic

Jason Statham bares his six-pack before speaking his first line in this humorless, efficient remake of the 1972 Charles Bronson hit-man movie.

Directed by Simon West (Con Air), The Mechanic (which opened here Friday) is all business: the solitary assassin and his mentor (Donald Sutherland); the latter’s ne’er-do-well son (Ben Foster); double-cross, payback and guns, guns, guns.

Where Bronson, without benefit of computers and miniature video cameras, had the blue-collar gravitas of working — well, killing — with his hands, Statham conveys serene metrosexual assurance. His unruffled Arthur Bishop is as much IT specialist as assassin: Bond without the wit, Bourne without the psychological trauma.

In the original, Bronson worked for the mob. Here, Statham, Sutherland and Foster are employed by smug suits in Lear jets. If they seem sad and obsolete, so they are. All they have is their job, and retirement literally equals death.