Out now in cinemas is Shelter, the latest action thriller starring Jason Statham & Bodhi Rae Breathnach going up against the UK government.
It feels like every couple of months, Jason Statham decides to jump back onto the big screen and fight someone. Whether it be the government, international criminals or just plain bullies, there is no one Statham won’t kick, punch and shoot with his signature style. What style is that, you ask? Why, it’s the style of an affable man whom everyone loves, unless you’re a bad guy.
In Shelter, we see Statham as a man who has chosen to shut himself off from the world because of his irredeemable sins. He’s a lone figure on a lone island; he survives on alcohol and playing chess with an imagined opponent. He’s mysterious and solitary with only his nameless dog for company. However, no man is an island, even when he literally lives on an island, so when a girl gets washed up on his isle, he needs to take care of her, and slowly but surely she breaks through the stone visage of his and gets to the human inside.
Who the fuck is that!?
Shelter is a woefully mediocre film. With Statham films, you are promised one element above all else, ridiculousness. Whether it stems from the superhuman nature of his characters or the over-the-top nature of why he goes to war against his enemies, a Statham film will always leave some kind of impression.
With Shelter, the impression I came away with was that it is a film stitched together from the corpses of better films. If you’re a fan of the Bourne Identity, there are key moments ripped from that. The wrorst rip-off came when the agency is looking up their database while hunting down Michael Mason (yes that’s his name). It’s hilariously similar to the Bourne reveal scene with none of style of iconography. Then there are several moments that draw inspiration from Collateral and John Wick. On top of that, the filmmaker is not afraid to draw from Statham’s other more enjoyable films, The Beekeeper and A Working Man, which continue the theme of a man with a questionable past being drawn back in to use his ill-got skills for good.
The film plods along as Michael and Jessie (Breathnach) try to evade the government while trying to get Jessie to safety. There are action scenes peppered throughout, but none of them are particularly interesting. Many of them are outright dumb, one scene that just made me laugh involved Michael and a small army of goons fighting in a club. It’s trying so hard to be Collateral and it fails at every step.
Shit!
At this point Statham has almost become a parody of himself, he always wins, he never shows pain, and he barely bleeds. It makes no sense, especially when there is a scene toward the end of the film where he is slammed several times in the face with a pipe. He comes away from that particular brawl with a cut lip and a slight bruise. It’s like some filmmakers forget what makes films like John Wick work is that we see the wounds, we see the hardship and yes even though John Wick is also seemingly immortal, he at least has the decency to have some semblance of humanity within him.
If I had anything decent to say about Shelter it would be that Jessie is desperately trying to pull some humanity out of Michael. This is thanks to Breathnach’s acting, she is trying so hard to get something out of Statham and they do at times have a decent rapport. Unfortunately, Shelter is not written well enough to sell this relationship convincingly. Bill Nighy is also in Shelter as the villainous Manafort, it’s Bill Nighy so he’s fun but the film doesn’t utilise hm nearly well enough.
Shelter is a boring film, not as wild as Crank or silly as The Beekeeper, with little originality to be found.
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