Safe

If you’re watching a Jason Statham movie in which he’s the lead and the only real star then you’ll already know exactly what to expect. For when the Stath’s involved there’s certain staples that must be met, the main ones being: Stath gets his top off, Stath kicks bad guy arse, there’s some dodgy foreigners and the whole things mindless mayhem. Well, you can sleep easy as all boxes are ticked in director Boaz Yakin’s Safe. Yakin is primarily known as a scripter (and he doubles up here), but with his back catalogue including clunkers such as From Dusk Till Dawn 2 and Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights it’s understandable if you approach this one with caution. In terms of plot we have Luke Wright (Jason Statham, not the England cricketer), an ex-cage fighter who finds himself helping a young girl (Mei) who is being pursued by the Triads, the Russian Mob and bent New York cops. The reason for their pursuit? Mei has memorised an important numerical code which they all want their paws on. Going back to my earlier warning, yes, the script is pretty awful (plus Hitchcock was doing the numbers in the head shtick over 75 years ago) but Yakin saves the day with some whip cracking direction and he moves the story along at pace. It’s all a bunch of gumph of course, but there’s a harder edge here than the usual Statham kill and quip outing. In addition Yakin has enough experience to know that any cheesiness between Luke and Mei would have been skin crawling and thus there is lack of sentimentality between them which is unusually refreshing. Throw in an appearance from the workaholic James Hong as the convincing and mean boss of the Triads and you have a picture that may be by the numbers (I thank you!), but still stands out from the crowd as it goes for hardness over (knowing) hilarity.      

The OC Film Sting Final Verdict
Pure formula, but still a kick in the head above the usual Statham dust-up fest. Rating: 6/10.