Shelter
Review by Mark W Woodring
As I grow older and watch more movies, I’ve learned certain truths about the films being released.
For example, Jason Statham’s movies, for all their violence, are actually some of the lowest-threat action movies you can get.
You can take your mom to a Statham movie, and she’ll likely be okay with it.
**NOTE: This post may be updated with audio once we actually have the chance to talk about it. Until then, you can read Mark’s review below. Remember, you can listen to all our discussions of this and every other movie directly over on ACAST. Stay tuned.**
107 Minutes, Rated R
Written by Ward Perry
Directed by Ric Roman Waugh
Synopsis:
A recluse on a remote Scottish island rescues a girl from the sea, unleashing a perilous sequence of events that culminate in an attack on his home, compelling him to face his turbulent history.
I don’t know if it’s his innate on-screen likability, or the close-to-home stories he chooses to tell, like in Shelter, where he is protecting a girl who was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.
In The Beekeeper, he destroyed an online scammer’s operation because the lady he was staying with was swindled out of everything and committed suicide from the shame.
Who hasn’t wanted to blow up a scammer’s building? Come on..
Shelter is typical Statham: tight fight scenes, more martial than firearm based, quiet brooding punctuated by sardonic not-quit-one-liners, and an easily digestible finale.
The real joy here, where Statham’s mystery man is being pursued by MI-6 using their beyond-state-of-the-art, massive (and absolutely immoral) surveillance system, and his ultimate foe is none other than Bill Nighy, disgraced and replaced head of MI-6.
I love it when Bill Nighy plays a villain. His entire demeaner can just resonate with the kind of energy that makes you want to hate him.
Ironically, he can also flip that demeanor to be someone you would absolute love to bring to dinner.
Naomi Ackie is mostly sidelined as an MI-6 head hand-picked to hold down the fort until a more suitable substitute can be installed (while Nighy secretly runs a behind-the-scenes, barely legal set of black ops). Woe to those who underestimate someone they acknowledge is capable but think is ignorant or controllable.
Ultimately what Shelter does best is NOT succumb to some of the typical Hollywood action tropes involving the girl he is protecting, but it does commit the near-cardinal sin of throwing sequel bait into the final scene instead of letting a great ending sit with the audience.
Another low-threat installment in his filmography, Shelter will provide Jason Statham with another house payment and we’ll see him again next year in an updated version of a Bronte novel as he fights his way across England to a soiree in order to take down a land baron who’s been terrorizing his tenant farmers.
Or something like that.
Shelter blasts into theaters on Friday, January 30, and stars Jason Statham, Bodhi Rae Breathnach, Bill Nighy, Naomi Ackie, Daniel Mays, Tom Wu, and Bryan Vigier.
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