Safe

Thursday, May 10th, 2012
Spoiler Warning - Post may contain spoilers

Safe is a film that tells you pretty much everything you need to know in the title.  It’s like one of those dishes that used to turn up on Great British Menu where an ingredients done Three Ways.  It’s a Safely handled action film, in which Statham’s character has to keep a girl Safe and that will feature at some points feature Safes.

The plot is pretty safe; it’s been around the block a few times over the years.  To its credit it manages to use that apparent predictability to have a little fun now and again.  The opening is quite brave slow cooking the situation with a series of moments in the lives of the main characters before finally bringing them together rather than launching straight into the action.

After that Safe goes down the action route all the way.  It has some gun fights.  It has some fist fights.  It has a car chase. It doesn’t have any particularly unbelievable stunts:  the most unbelievable one I can think of is on a par with the Borne Identity.  The application of a Borne styling and solid cinematography to the film gives helps it avoid slipping into unsafe action flick waters.  You know the ones – waters occupied by dodgy JKVD or Steven Segal movies – where it’s hard to date the film because they all look dated.

The acting is Solid from a supporting cast.  Thankfully there aren’t any big names or acting heavyweights that leave you with the feeling they turned up, took the money and didn’t work very hard for it.  Jason Statham plays this part pretty much as he plays all his parts – through one liners and physical performance.  He hasn’t quite reached the point in his career where he does a Jackie Chan and all his characters are called Jackie but if he keeps going the way he is it’s only a matter of time.

Safe is an entirely safe action thriller.  Better than Killer Elite, Blitz and on a par with The Mechanic.  Fun but not a classic.

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