#12: SHELTER

 

STARRING: JASON STATHAM, Bodhi Rae Breathnach, Bill Nighy, Naomi Ackie and Daniel Mays. Written by Ward Parry. Directed by Ric Roman Waugh. Running time 107 minutes.

It's time for The Stath's new action movie! Nothing new there you might think, he's been releasing new action films every year for almost 25 years. However what is new is the formula! Last year the Stath played Levon Cade an ex-Marine, and one-man killing machine, who was working as construction site labourer, in 2023 he was Adam Clay a bee-keeper who just so happened to be an ex-government one-man killing machine, and in 2021 he was a one-man killing machine, who worked as a security guard. This year, he's a lighthouse keeper who used to be the world's greatest one-man killing machine. See, real change! He's working in light house!

Actually, this one is different from the rest, perhaps because The Stath is getting older, but it feels more grounded, more weary. His portrayal of its hero, Mason as a man carrying the woes of the world on his shoulders, he's weary, he's insanely stoic but he's living his life in a state of permanent fear. He feels vulnerable. 

The story sees Mason forced to end his self-imposed exile as a lighthouse keeper when Jessie (Bodhi Rae Breathnach), an orphaned teenage girl who delivers his groceries, gets ship-wrecked on his outer Hebridean Island following a storm and suffers a nasty ankle injury that gets infected. This forces Mason to go to the mainland in search of medicine and accidentally getting his retina scanned by a CCTV, which  in doing so triggers a variety of government kill squads and assassins who are all determined to kill him for something he's done in the past. What that something is has something to do with Manafort (Bill Nighy) who used to run M.I.6. but who now operates a covert government-sanctioned kill squad utilising the world's CCTV capabilities. Then it's bloodbath time as Mason and Jessie are forced to go on the run while Mason finds a way to save his young charge.

Filmed in and around the UK gives this an all-together different feel and helps to ground the film, making it feel far more real than last year's rather turgid Working Man, similarly Mason isn't your usual Statham hero, he's jaded and more real than the others, more grounded. Although he still has that fantastic ability to shrug off gunshot wounds and stabbings and takes a beating that would kill lesser men.

Look, no beating round the bush (not a pun), this is another by-the-numbers, Ronsil-style action movie, it references John Wick at times but it's not a gun orgy, the fights are short and brutal. Sure, The Stath does his usual hard-hitting kicks and punches but it looks plausible. The fight scenes are frantic and very kenetic. It's more than competently directed by Ric Roman Waugh, a former stunt man and director of Angel Has Fallen who knows his way round a fight scene and that certainly helps in spades! And through it all Mason becomes human again and that gives this film something that The Stath's films don't usually have, heart. 

It's a film that doesn't out stay its welcome, it's a compact, action romp that actually rather entertaining and more grounded than most, and it has an emotional core that really rather sweet. And I enjoyed it greatly! Most satisfying.

7/10