The Mechanik

Introduction

Nikolai (Dolph Lundgren) is an ex-Russian paratrooper and Spetsnaz with experience in Afghanistan (where else?) who has retired to a sleepy Russian village to fix cars and look after his family. Trouble comes to town one day in the form of gangster Sasha Popov (Ivan Petrushinov) who is busy double crossing the peasants who traffic his heroin for him.


In the raging gun battle that inexplicably follows, Nikolai's young son and wife are killed. Nikolai quickly dons his uniform and goes to bring down the gangster, leaving him for dead after shooting him in the face. Big mistake, never leave someone for dead after only seven minutes. Action movie rule number 7 or maybe 8 - I can't remember, they all blur after a while. Still it's turns out that Popov is the worst shot ever, so it's not all bad.

Roll on 7 years and inexplicably (once more) Nikolai has moved illegally to Los Angeles to fix cars. A lawyer finds him and offers to pay him $250k to rescue a girl who's been kidnapped in Russia. The burly spanner wielder has a pressing MOT to finish and refuses, despite the lawyer threatening to shop him to Homeland Security or Immigration or someone. It takes the girl's mother to produce a photo of Popov to get Nik's attention and pretty soon he's back in Russia. Hurrah.


Along the way he meets William Burton (Ben Cross), an Englishman living in Russia and with possibly the worst dialogue in cinema history, who has put his team together, despite Nik's insistence of working alone. Does that sentence make sense? I don't care at this point.

And then there's lots of punch ups and shooting…

Visual

Some of the Russian scenery is rather nice, but the choice of a couple of locations is rather bizarre. The cinematographer loves his slowmo tracking shots by the way.

Oh and there's a bloody great banner across the screen but luckily it doesn't interfere with the few subtitles.

Audio

Digital 2.0 Stereo soundtrack with dialogue that isn't always audible. Has subtitles, but only where there is prolonged Russian dialogue - this is a half measure and not good enough. I wish they'd make up their minds whether the dialogue should be in Russian or English though, it just keeps changing around and it's very annoying.

Extras

Nada.

Overall

Revenge flick, by the numbers, directed by Lundgren in 2005 and based on a story by him. If this is your thing, you'll probably dig it - especially if you like low production value straight in the bargain bin flicks.

Enough said.