(USA, 94 min.)
Written and directed by Boaz Yakin
Starring: Jason Statham, Catherine Chan, Robert John Burke,
Reggie Lee, James Hong, Anson Mount, Chris Sarandon.
Let the Razzie race begin! Safe is a double-barreled turkey that waddles into the multiplex
with both guns a-blazing. It stumbles on its own idiocy, though, and pumps two
rounds of lead into its little bald head, thus splaying loads of gobbledygook
amidst a half-assed mêlée of gunfire. More in the vein of Guy Ritchie’s Swept Away than of Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, Safe is unlikely to delight fans of action star Jason Statham.
Once fun in Snatch and
a badass in The Transporter, Statham
is essentially on autopilot here. He stars as Luke Wright, a former boxer who
pissed off the Russian mob, lost his wife and kid in the process, and is now on
the lam. He might have also been an undercover cop, or some kind of mob
affiliate, or a stool pigeon, but that’s never quite clear. He gets even,
though, when he saves Mei. Mei is played by Catherine Chan, who, although not
quite an alumni of the Thomas Horn School of Acting, proves that roles of
dramatic or narrative significance should rarely be afforded to children.
Mei was brought to New York from China under duress by some
Asian mobsters (Reggie Lee, James Hong). They want Mei for her mathematical
mind, as she can remember all sorts of useful numbers, especially some long
list of digits that can open a safe.
When Mei gets abducted by the Russian mafia – and this is where things start to
get complicated – she refuses to give up the number and then has both mobs
after her, as well as a league of dirty cops.
Just before he jumps in front of the subway, Luke sees Mei
in trouble. Then, after a ludicrous shootout in the subway, a rumble in the asphalt
jungle and a string of unnecessary killings that void Luke of any redemption,
Luke befriends Mei. He promises to keep her safe. “Safe” and “safe” – see how clever this film is, eh?
Writer/director Boaz Yakin, unprepared for rough and tough
action films with his previous credits of Uptown
Girls and Remember the Titans,
serves up a catalogue of clichés, hackney-eyed one-liners, and unnecessary racist
slurs and stereotypes. Add to this the completely incomprehensible story – Safe makes little sense for such a talky
action movie – plus the excessive gaps in logic and holes in plot, and Safe inadvertently morphs from action to
comedy. Seriously, this script is so bad that even Nicolas Cage might have
turned it down.
Like a bad host at a terrible party, Safe has nothing to offer. It barely even provides style to
compensate for its lack of substance – not that senseless violence is acceptable
if it looks cool or pretty, but a film like The
Raid shows that an action movie can still be wildly entertaining without
having much to it. Safe, on the other
hand, looks as terrible as it sounds. The action scenes, for lack of a better
word, suck. They are often filmed in a shaky/disorienting style à la The Hunger Games, but the effect feels
out of place. Not simply because the style is an utter misfire in this case,
but it felt appropriate for The Hunger
Games to find some alternate form to convey the teen-on-teen violence,
whereas one enters a Jason Statham film for thrilling visceral combat and not
some botched attempt at artsy martial arts. Safe
also includes a record number of innocent bystanders in its colossal
body-count, thus giving Chris Rock some merit in his remark of long ago that a
tax on bullets might be the best solution for curbing America’s rate of violent
crime.
A true turkey, Safe will
surely ride the gravy train from the multiplex to a bargain bin near you.
Gobble gobble!
Rating: ★ (out of ★★★★★)
Safe opens in theatres April 27th.
