Safe

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Myself

Jason Statham continues to make solid little action flicks. That he of all people would be this generations Bruce Willis or Sylvester Stallone always seemed unlikely to me and yet he's always been pretty reliable, his films enjoyable, at least his theatrical releases are.

This one, whilst having some nice action, also uses a good half of the film setting up its story and characters. We follow two characters intercut in their own little self contained films, one a down on his luck boxer film, the other a orphan girl with a gift coming of age film and then when they finally meet halfway through it explodes into nonstop action for the rest of it.

It is a long set up but it completely worked for me, while the story isn't anything that new or special it was convincingly done. I'll admit to getting a little gun fatigue, most of the action is fast paced shaky cam shoot outs, but it is punctuated often enough with little hand to hand moments and some inventive and very painful sounding blows. The bad guys in this film get hurt and the audience feels it too.

Another pleasant surprise was seeing some familiar faces pop up as supporting characters. Particularly James Hong whom I recently enjoyed rewatching in Big Trouble in Little China and Chris Sarandon who recently made a geektastic cameo in the new Fright Night.

Cathrine Chan never gets to the dizzying heights of, say, Natalie Portman in Leon, but she is serviceable as the young girl who is mixed up with all these gangsters.

This is definitely one of Statham's best and if he continues to output action of this quality and volume he's sure to be remembered with those 80's greats.