Film: Safe (15)

Director: Boaz Yakin

The plot to Safe doesn’t sound too original at first: an ex-elite agent turned cage fighter rescues a little girl from the hands of Triads and the Russian mafia, only to discover she’s a maths genius with a vital code in her head. Sound familiar? ‘Not another Jason Statham film where he’s just driving around and jumping off things,’ you say. Don’t worry, Safe is very different from Crank, The Transporter, Death Race or even Mercury Rising – Bruce Willis’ own 1998 ‘child genius with a code’ rescue movie.

Proving that it’s not the story but how it’s told that’s original, director Boaz Yakin, has taken a plot that could have been a trite reworking of a tired formula, and turned it into a fast-paced, witty, good old-fashioned action film, with an innovative and engaging take on many of the sequences.

Aside from the excellent supporting performances from Reggie Lee (Quan) and Catherine Chan (Mei), the first noticeable innovation is the car chases; instead of pulling the camera back to reveal all the action at once, Yakin keeps the audience in the car while it is under attack. The point-of-view shots and bullets whizzing around leave the viewer as confused as the characters. When Luke Wright (Statham) is negotiating heavy New York traffic, the camera is brought down to ground-level, with a few select ‘trombone’ shots to make the audience even more uneasy.

There are no pointless, contrived fighting scenes; the action is sharp, intense and well choreographed. The script is also much tighter than many of the run-of-the-mill action movies that have been churned out of late, with plenty of witty one-liners, mainly delivered by Statham, he seems more out of the John McClane mould then his Bacon/Turkish ‘geezer off a market’ persona of his early days.

The similarities don’t stop there. Just as Bruce knocked around in his now trademark white vest, ‘the Stath’ seems to have created his own craggy action attire – as he dons a seen-much-better-days woolly hat to blend in with his fellow down-and-outs. Statham recently said Killer Elite was a ‘more grown-up’ film than he’d previously made. Safe is a move in that direction as he increases his repertoire and cements his action hero credentials.

Released Friday 4 May
Showing at Odeon and Cineworld
Read our interview with Safe star Jason Statham, p22.