As of late, Jason Statham seems to be on something of a tear. Whether you actually dig his particular brand of ass-kickery, one of the last, true, action heroes still left standing has had at least one major release year on year for quite a while now. Whether he was going a second round with giant killer sharks in The Meg 2 or laying the pain on various elaborately dressed killers in the likes of The Beekeeper or A Working Man, since The Rock has moved into more serious acting, the Stath seems to have free reign of virtually the entire action genre. It’s with this in mind that his latest, Shelter, washes up on the shores of a January release that sees him tread some suspiciously familiar ground.
But while the likes of the Bourne movies have made the notion of a tormented super agent on the run virtually it’s own subgenre overnight, that hasn’t stopped Statham from putting his own spin on it in a film that could easily be renamed The Bald Identity.
Every week, Jessie and her uncle deliver supplies to a recluse living on a small island just off the coast of Scotland, but even though they seem to be the only way this guy is getting any food and booze whatsoever, the young girl grows increasingly frustrated with how little respect this strange man seems to have for them. However, when she chooses to break the rules and confront the grizzled loner, it means that she and her uncle are caught in a particularly vicious storm when they attempt to leave and in the driving rain and howling wind, disaster occurs. However, Jessie is saved from drowning when the man breaks his own rules and hurls himself into the ocean to rescue her from certain death.
The man’s name is Michael Mason and despite the fact that he has a gargantuan aversion to public life, he soon heads to the mainland in order to get necessary medical supplies to nurse Jessie back to health. However, it’s this heroic act causes the exact snowball effect that Mason has been living in self-imposed exile to avoid when his face triggers the computer programmes of MI5 and sets the British secret service all a quiver.
You see, Michael Mason is a former government assassin that left the life after angering his handler at the time, arch spy-master Manafort. Realising that a life of committing shadowy murder for the government, the proficient killer was hoping that a life of anonymity would give him some pieces. However, if he’d owned a TV and literally watched any of the spy movies made over the last twenty years, a sure fire way to give your old handlers a fucking heart attack is to suddenly pop back on the grid without a by your leave.
Before you know it, both Mason and Jessie are on the run with unstoppable freshly activated assests gunning for them. However, Mason knows a few things about being unstoppable too and the chase begins as his desperately tries to find a safe haven for his young companion.
While Statham’s output may not quite have the staying power of his more eighties forebarers (I love him, but he’s never made an actioner with the culteral a Rambo or a Terminator), it the release of David Ayer’s gloriously ludicrous The Beekeeper seemed to have given the actor a bit of pep that his direct to streaming collaborations with his old mucker, Guy Richie, had been missing. However, while Ric (Angel Has Fallen) Roman Waugh looks to add a bit more grit and gloom to the primary coloured violence of the Stath’s precious few outings, the basics of Shelter prove to be amusingly familiar. Never mind that we’ve literally just come off back to back movies that all include near-identical scenes where we discover the scary, military background of our gruff, monosyllabic protagonist, but vast swathes of the movie also “borrow” liberally from the book of Jason Bourne in a way that audaciously seems to think that we won’t notice.
Quite why the makers of Shelter think that the majority of the movie watching public has suddenly forgotten that that other, highly influential, action/spy franchise exists I’m not quite sure, but when Bill Nighy’s cold-blooded reveals that the name of the Blackbriar-esque assassin programme is called Black Kites, it’s obvious that a fair amount of copying homework has been going on. It’s not enough to scupper the film in general (how many killer shark movies have there been since Jaws), but it certainly does eradicate a lot of tension and surprise thanks to the influx of over familiarity. Not only is Nighy a thinly veiled replacement for the likes of Chris Cooper and David Strathairn, but Naomi Ackie is mostly wasted in the underwritten, Joan Allen-type role – but while Shelter seems to be on the run from anything approaching originality, there’s a fair few plus points that manages to drag the film into the black.
For a start, the addition of a child sidekick may sound like it’s the cue for your eyeballs to start rolling, but Bodhi Rae Breathnach manages to skillfully avoid being an annoying whiner despite being burdened with a lot of sub-Leon material to work with. Yes, she soon starts emotionally clinging to the former killer which gradually starts to chip away at his gruff shell, but she also manages to keep the precociousness to a minimum which proves to be refreshing. Another thing that works in Shelter’s favour is that Waugh avoids the cartoon excess of The Beekeeper or the gothic weirdness of A Working Man to make things a bit more down to earth while still delivering a healthy amount of ass-whuppage. In fact, I was surprised at how varied some of the action was that starts with the Stath beating the shit out of special forces guys in the wilds of the Outer Hebrides and ends with him going John Wick mode in a club in the Isle Of Dogs. Sprinkled in-between is the odd, well shot car chase, repeated rematches against a determined assassin and more battered cops that you can shake a can of mace at and while Shelter doesn’t reinvent the wheel, it does enough to confidently stand on the side of competent.
And Statham himself? Well, he’s hardly stretching himself here, but I’m sure that his fan base has no interest in him tackling the works of Chaucer either, so as long as he can growl his lines out and deliver a convincing spin kick, we’re all good – but I have to say, I’d rather have gotten the more rambunctious excesses of The Beekeeper 2 sooner than get this more measured entry in a crowded cannon.
Shelter may not deliver anything new, but what it does offer is of a good enough quality to be a decent night out for acolytes of the bald one. There’s better Stath movies and there’s more fun Stath movies – but there’s also Expend4bles too, so it doesn’t pay to be too harsh on how strapped for new ideas the film obviously is. If you believe that mid-level Stath with enjoyably slick brawls is far better than no Stath at all, then Shelter will put a comforting roof over your head.
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