Safe Movie Review
I think it’s safe to say that Jason Stratham has found the movie vehicle that works for him; a decrepit, hole filled weak story that only serves as the delivery system for a series of really good driving, shooting, and martial arts action. It’s like taking a luxury passenger train and filling all the cars with fine food, quality entertainment, and the most interesting people on the planet and then hitching it to a three legged arthritic donkey instead of a locomotive. If you are looking for a story that goes somewhere and does something that doesn’t damage your brain you should probably have taken the express. On the other hand, if all you want to do is party in the back with all the explosions, car wrecks, and massive gun battles than look no further than this film.
I honestly don’t know where else to go with this review. It looks like the producers set out to make a decent action film and more or less accomplished that goal. As far as the story goes, it is pretty much Max Payne meets Terminator 2 with an 11 year old girl in place of young John Carter. There is a smattering of Hard Boiled and Generic Russian Mafia Movie A as well. Jason Stratham (Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, Killer Elite, the Expendables) plays Luke Wright, an ex cage fighter who failed to go down in a fight correctly and is now hated by the Russian mafia. His whole back story is explained to us in what I am going to call “flashback shotgun” style. In other words a massive cluster of flashbacks are loaded into a gun and shot against the wall in hopes that some of them would hit the target. For some inexplicable reason the gangsters opt to not kill him when they had the chance, leaving a dangerous man with awesome combat skills and nothing to lose. No danger of that going badly. Their plan is to somehow torture him by killing anyone he talks to for more than one sentence, starting with his wife. Anyway, we get another blast in the face with the flashback shotgun as we are introduced to Mei (Catherine Chan-Aftershock) an 11 year old girl from China who speaks flawless English and can memorize any numbers.
For some other weird reason the Chinese gangsters Mei has been drafted into working for think the best way to do a deal for some money is to create a code for a safe combination and have Mei memorize it. Did I mention that the story was stupid? They never heard of a several pieces of paper, or maybe just calling the person they are doing the deal with and telling the the safe combination via telephone? When you see the film you will see how amazingly needlessly complicated Mei’s involvement in the whole deal really is. The really convoluted and poorly explained deal goes badly and Mei barely escapes with her life.
At that point Luke rescues her and the action really kicks off. Naturally he has some kind of mysterious past and in spite of being a homeless bum is also some kind of unstoppable killing machine. Turns out he could have killed the Russians any time he wanted to but was looking for an excuse more meaningful than the death of his wife and the ruination of his life. He was also on the NYC police force but was kicked off for blowing the whistle on some corrupt cops.
So the girl is being chased by the Chinese mafia, the Russian mafia, and the corrupt police who all want her either alive or dead(?). At that point I really started scratching my head. It seems writer/director Boaz Yakin (Prince of Persia, Remember the Titans, Fresh) believes that cops in New York are corrupt enough to be party to the murder of an 11 year old girl. The action gets hot as the plot gets more convoluted and stupid. The cops are tricked into going on a raid of the Chinese casino (sans warrant) or something. Is asking for some semblance of sense in a movie really that much?
So, the stars. The action was in fact really good. Jason kicks, punches, shoots, and runs down a massive legion of bad guys in very cool and exciting ways. Three stars. As formulaic as he is, I actually really like the standard Stratham character. One star. The character Mei was pretty cool too. One star. All the villains were extremely well cast and portrayed as bad men. 
I especially enjoyed James Hong (Big Trouble in Little China, Hero, Kung Fu Panda. Pork Chop Express image courtesy of the Movie T Shirts) as the leader of the Chinese mafia. One star. I’m actually torn on this next one as I think it could be either a star or a black hole, but the fact is the film did not crowbar in a hot girl to be the dumb romance sub plot. I think I will give them a star for not insulting my intelligence. One star. Generally a fun movie. One star. Total: eight stars.
The black holes. If flashbacks were fortified wine, this movie contains enough to kill all the homeless people on Haight Street. One black hole. Dumb, overly complicated plot that didn’t make much sense and was riddle with plot holes. Two black holes. I’ll give one to this film in support of the NYC Police and my belief that for the most part they are not corrupt. One black hole. The guy playing the ultimate bad guy must have been in rehab or something for most of the shooting as he more or less surfaces out of no where in the last 20 minutes of the film. One black hole. Total: five black holes.
A total of three stars. Not bad, not great. Like I said before, if you are looking for action and don’t want to engage your fore brain much this film will do you. Date movie? Not really. A lot of rated R violence plus no romance will spoil it for the average girl. Also, Jason Stratham manages to get his shirt off within the first five minutes and unless you have been hitting the gym lately you will suffer in comparison. Bathroom break? I’d say about the time Luke and Mei check into the hotel so Luke can shower and not shave. Just a lot of reexplaining what just happened or being told stuff that becomes obvious later. Don’t take your time however as things heat up pretty good shortly.
I’d also like it noted that my observation from Killer Elite that Jason Stratham must have a five o’clock shadow written into his film contracts holds true in this one. He never shaves nor does he seem to grow any shaggier in spite of what looks like months of elapsed time.
Thanks for reading. I’ll see something else tomorrow night I think. My friend is showing 13 Assassins on Wednesday night so I might write something about that. I know it’s late but I really want to see it. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu or send me an email to [email protected] if you have specific questions or suggestions. Feel free to comment here if you have thoughts on this movie or review. Talk to you soon.
Dave
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