Despite being the mind behind the brilliant L.A. Confidential, writer James Ellroy's work rarely transitions well to the big screen. Much like graphic novelist Frank Miller, Ellroy needs a director who can temper his sometimes unnecessarily over the top and formulaic material into a watchable package. With Ellroy’s latest outing Rampart, director Oren Moverman show’s that he’s simply not up to the challenge leading to film that feels wholly indistinguishable from the author’s past big screen outings about dirty Los Angeles cops.
While there’s much to praise and little to deride about Contraband, there are only so many ways to say that the movie holds very few surprises and everything happens in exactly the way one expects it would happen. This smuggling thriller does pretty much everything right, not a heck of a lot wrong, and viewers will be engaged enough to keep from checking their watches every few minutes. It’s a very competently made piece of Hollywood machinery, but it’s also the kind of a movie one would watch with a laptop open or while doing chores because of how little an impression it leaves.
Despite it's generic qualities, which are numerous, The Mechanic maintains an appealing lack of moral rectitude throughout its running time. Jason Statham plays Arthur Bishop, a “mechanic”, which is code for assassin. He kills people for an unspecified evil corporate entity run by his mentor. The lack of specificity concerning his motivations is an asset to the film. It helps make the hackneyed direction by Simon West more palatable.
