Shelter Review

It's winter, which means it's time for a Jason Statham movie. What's different this time? Well, um, he has to protect a girl. Talk about range.

"Shelter" is mercifully better written and directed than "A Working Man," his stinker last year, but it is missing the gleeful silliness of "The Beekeeper." It occupies a sort of awkward middle ground between the two, which, should satisfy the star's undemanding fans.

Statham plays Mason, a man with so little backstory, IMDB doesn't even list his whole name (which is Michael Mason, for what its worth). Living reclusively on an island lighthouse, his only interaction being a weekly supply-drop by a young girl and her uncle. One particular day, a storm is coming in over the ocean, she confronts Mason, curious as to why they're always delivering to him, who is he is, that sort of thing. He sends her away, and that slight delay is just enough for the weather to turn violent, capsizing the boat. Mason rushes in to try and save them, but only she survives, walking away with an injured ankle and some swallowed water.

The young woman's name is Jesse (Bodhi Rae Breathnach, who wonderfully balances grief, innocence and naivety), and she awakens distraught at the news of the death of her only living relative. But Ward Parry' script doesn't wait around for character development like a normal movie, this is a Jason Statham movie, and once today's equivalent to Chuck Norris heads into town to pick up some medical supplies for her, a camera picks up his face and is immediately flagged as a terrorist, and thus begins what all the middle aged men I saw in the theater today came for. (It takes way too long for the action to pick up, ten or so minutes of fluff a script like this doesn't know what to do with.)

This leads to the core narrative of illegal surveillance, with Bill Nighy as Manafort, formerly high-ranking in MI6 until a "blick and you miss it" scene where he steps down amidt allegations of government overreach, as well as Mason's former employer. The academy-award nominated actor has less to do than a book would on the set; he leads a cover-up of Mason's defection ten years ago, after he disobeyed orders, and is trying to have him killed. This never really amounts to anything but a clotheline for Statham's rampage to be justified on. And now that Jesse is involved, she's expendable, and the film becomes a rescue mission to get her out of the country.

There isn't much else here, either; Naomi Ackie stars as Roberta, another MI6 official who is immediately suspicious of Manafort, but her involvement and skepticism goes nowhere. There's no closure on this whole corruption plot, leaving us with your standard shootouts and grunts who continue to prove no match for our English action star. 

Director Ric Roman Waugh does a decent job filming the fisticuffs at least, but every inspired setpiece (like a nightclub late in the runtime) is followed by a murky fight on a dimly lit doc. He even commits cinema's biggest sin: he lets a dog die! And unlike the film's obvious inspiration "John Wick," it doesn't have any greater meaning on a character's pathos. It's just an unpleasant scene, in which a dog, gets shot. This is one shelter not worth taking.