Safe Review

In a break with tradition, Jason Statham plays a tough nut who has to fight his way to justice in an enjoyable action film. I jest of course. Statham has well and truly carved out a niche for himself as the go to guy for bald-headed action brutality now that Bruce Willis is just about past it (except for in the ‘too old for this shit’ sub-genre in the action – seeSurrogates, The Expendables, etc).

So long as The Stathe keeps churning out slightly by the numbers beat ‘em ups, I’ll be happy to keep watching them. The biggest draw in any Jason Statham film is the man’s undeniable charisma. It’s difficult to think of any other action hero who is so universally well-liked (around my office, he’s known simply as ‘Sir Jason’) and he does not disappoint in Safe.

In this film, Statham plays a former super NYPD cop, turned cage fighter, now a street bum, who decides, whilst teetering on the edge of a tube platform not to commit suicide, but instead to rescue a cute Chinese girl Mei from warring factions of Russian and Chinese mobsters. Mei has the combination to a safe full of millions of dollars memorised in her computer-like brain, which obviously makes her brain very popular with all manner of bad men with big guns.

The plot is actually somewhat more complex (convoluted?) than that, but it boils down to Statham punching lots of people in the face and then delivering a wry quip. Which works really well. Writer and director Boaz Yakin keeps things nice and simple and the frequent action set pieces crop up with pleasing regularity.

You could argue that Safe is somewhat unsophisticated, but that’s a bit like complaining that the nice big hammer you’ve just bought is only good for bashing nails into surfaces (and occasionally pulling them out again). Safe does what it sets out to do very effectively and for that it must be commended. Admittedly there is something approaching emotional complexity in Statham’s relationship with his young companion as he fulfils a surrogate father-figure role, but the film wisely doesn’t dwell too much on this aspect.

In summation, Safe is another typical Jason Statham film – and that is by no means a derogatory comment. The man knows how to pick his projects and Safe just as fundamentally enjoyable and easy to watch as the best of The Stathe’s respectable oeuvre. A friend of mine has argued that Sir Jason is the UK’s greatest living actor. Whilst that may not quite be the case, he certainly makes a decent case for the UK’s most reliable former diver in consistently entertaining action roles. Frankly, what more could you want?