Movie Review: Safe
This was exactly the Jason Statham action flick you were expecting.
Safe, directed by Boaz Yakin starring action flick veteran Jason Statham alongside newcomer Catherine Chan, took the idea of ridiculous storylines and generic villains and ran with it ending up with an excess of plot that in the mere 94 minutes of the film. In this case stuffing police conspiracy, political corruption, barely related issues with two separate crime families, Chinese Triads and the Russian mob, add a child prodigy (Chan’s Mei), and a cage fighting ex-cop/assassin (Statham’s Luke Wright) ended up being little more than a collage of action film clichés.
Oftentimes outrageous plots are a huge part of what makes an action flick so awesome. If the action sequences and witty liners are top notch very little plot is required, and character development, what is that? There were times where it seemed as though Safe was heading dangerously close to attempts at character development, and those were among the film’s weakest moments second to the mostly cringe-worthy dialogue, the offhand racist remarks, and particularly strange voice dubbing that often gave the feeling that the timing on the dialogue track wasn’t quite lined up.
The motivations for either street gang, the police and the mayor’s end game are relatively meaningless in the melee of gun battles in various hotels, car chases across the city, hand to hand combat and the occasional quip from our hero, Mei or a sly one-liner from one of the many villains. The codes and the safe itself provide barely enough of a jumping off point to keep the action going because the real heart of the story is how an ex-cop and a little girl can save each other?… yeah, let’s just pretend that isn’t happening.
This is all okay because Safe is exactly what it promises to be, it’s an action movie from front to back with the exception of a weirdly elongated (and fairly tedious) set up at the beginning. The chase scenes, martial arts sequences and numerous GUN BATTLES were well executed; Jason Statham tore through Manhattan in the most satisfying way possible, with lots and lots of carnage. It’s hard to say what was really resolved at end of the movie, but Mei is safe for now and I’ll take it until SAFE 2 when Mei goes to college and Luke Wright has to step in and blow shit up again.
The question that I’m left with is how much the film was a self-referential action flick winking at the audience, and how much of it was just trying to fit too much into one movie. If you’re a diehard action movie junkie go out and see this film. If it’s plot, story and character development you’re looking for do yourself a favour and look elsewhere.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on Safe in the comments.
