There’s no sanctuary here if Jason Statham keeps fighting the same villains.
The last entertaining Jason Statham movie I enjoyed was “Spy,” which also served as a satire on the action movie star’s work. In fact, the more run-of-the-mill movies he makes (“Hobbs and Shaw,” “Expend4bles,” “The Beekeeper,” “A Working Man,” etc.), the more I’m thinking about how maybe he should star in a parody of his movies. Even Liam Neeson and Nicolas Cage have lampooned themselves. Or maybe he should tackle on more independent thrillers where he’s able to have a unique character study and a real complexity of the crimes his character gotten himself into.
His latest addition “Shelter” isn’t terrible, it’s just okay. It’s not really something rushing to the theaters to see, as Statham plays a former Royal Marine named Michael Mason, wishing to live out his life as a hermit in an abandoned lighthouse off the coast of Scotland. He also is targeted by bad guys, who are part of a controversial surveillance program-created by Manafort and supervised by Roberta (Naomi Ackie), and if any of them reach his island, that’s when he plays Kevin McCallister meets John Wick on them.
He ends up back in danger, when he rescues his former partner’s niece named Jesse (Bodhi Rae Breathnach, who currently plays Shakespeare’s eldest daughter Susanna in “Hamnet”) from drowning after a routine supply delivery gets caught in the middle of a storm. I’m surprised her recently departed uncle never told her that she has no other family besides him. Only Mason tells her that when he refuses to take her to a hospital, and she responds: “You can’t just keep me here!” and “My family will be looking for me.”
Seeing him as her only friend, it would be inevitable that when he wants to send her away to safety, she has to cry and beg him to come with her. And it would also be inevitable that he would tell her: “You don’t want this life.” This is when the film annoyingly tries to go for that sentimental approach.
And being a kind hearted girl, when Mason teaches her how to hold a gun, she has to say “Please” to a local farmer, so his wounds could be treated. And when she threatens to shoot the program’s best assassin-the mostly silent James Workman (French stunt performer Bryan Vigier)-who is strangling Mason, he gains the upper hand. But don’t worry, the hero takes him down, for now.
“Shelter” was directed by Ric Roman Waugh, whose “Greenland 2: Migration” is currently bombing at the box office. I’m not sure how this movie will fare with audiences (especially since they’re more interested in getting back to the world of Pandora in “Avatar: Fire and Ash” and are salvaging to see Sam Raimi’s latest horror movie “Send Help”), but I still am not a fan of it.
You can tell that Statham wants to be the Charles Bronson of this generation, and he does what he can in this movie. He makes speeches at night clubs, looks good with a beard, and he slowly shows some sentimentality when it comes to his chemistry with the girl. I don’t hate the actor, I like the actor and he has made some entertaining movies. But his recent films aren’t all that exciting or stylish.
At least, this one isn’t directed by David Ayer, who seems to think that ever since his lousy take on “Suicide Squad” was a big hit, he can stylize the villains. I personally think he should stop doing that, because it’s not going to make them look cool. But we’ll talk about that in my review of his next movie.
Breathnach can be a fine young actress, and she has her moments in “Hamnet,” but her character is too emotional and sometimes weak to be in a run-of-the-mill action movie like this. She should be placed in a better film of the genre, where she needs to wake some heroes up. Maybe she can tell Jack Sully to stop being tough on his son, as long as he puts on a breathing mask.
“Shelter” isn’t the movie for me, but I still have faith in Statham.