Whether it's True Grit, Leon: The Professional, Man on Fire or the recent Dust Bunny, movies love to pair off gruff tough guys with precocious young girls. It was only a matter of time before Jason Statham found himself in such a scenario, which is exactly what we get from director Ric Roman Waugh's Shelter.
At this point there's almost something comforting about the lack of originality that goes into a Statham vehicle. Like an uncomplicated greasy spoon café, you know exactly what you're getting. Following The Beekeeper and A Working Man, this is the third year in a row to see Statham play a bloke hiding from a past life as a government-sanctioned killer. This British production is far more grounded than Statham's recent American movies however. With relatable fight choreography and an absence of obvious CG, it resembles the sort of flick that might have been headlined by Charles Bronson in the '70s. And that, to this writer at least, is no bad thing.
Statham plays Mason, a former MI6 assassin who has spent the last decade hiding out on a remote Scottish island after refusing to execute an innocent man. Mason lives alone on the island with his adorable dog (who of course he hasn't named, because tough guys don't give their dogs names) and receives supplies once every few weeks from an old Royal Marines buddy and his 12-year-old niece Jessie (Bodhi Rae Breathnach), both of whom are forbidden from making contact with Mason.
Mason's hermit lifestyle is disturbed when a storm capsizes Jessie's boat, killing her uncle. Mason rescues the girl but refuses to take her back to the mainland, fearing his cover will be blown. When he's forced to take a trip to pick up medical supplies, Mason is caught on camera and pings MI6's radar. As various villains are dispatched to take out Mason and the "loose end" Jessie, the pair are forced to go on the run.
Bill Nighy proves ideally cast as Manafort, Mason's weaselly former MI6 boss, now disgraced due to a data-mining scandal. I'm not sure the movie entirely needs Naomi Ackie as his replacement Roberta (surely she's far too young for such a position?), who serves mostly to dole out exposition about Mason's past relationship with Manafort. Shelter can't decide what role Roberta is supposed to play in all of this, and it's unclear whose side she's on. It almost seems as if her character exists solely to lay the foundation of a possible sequel.
This movie is all about the relationship between the grizzled Mason and the weary-beyond-her-years Jessie, and this dynamic gives Shelter a beating heart that's absent from many of its action movie rivals. Breathnach, recently seen in a minor role in Hamnet, effectively tugs at our heartstrings as a kid who has suffered multiple losses in her life and doesn't like the idea of being ditched by her adopted father figure. The Irish ingenue's performance is so good that she elevates her famous co-star, who delivers a surprisingly nuanced turn here. Statham's granite features occasionally crack just enough to suggest that in another life where he's not being hounded by trained killers, the prospect of surrogate fatherhood doesn't seem so bad to Mason.
Unlike Statham's more cartoonish recent fare, Shelter largely plays out in a recognisable world. Many fugitive narratives pretend the surveillance state of the 21st century doesn't exist, whereas Shelter leans into the reality that it's impossible to go anywhere in Britain without having your image captured multiple times. We're well accustomed to American thrillers portraying the state as the villain, but it's rare to see the UK authorities assigned such a role on screen. Shelter embraces the concerns many British citizens harbour over an increasingly intrusive big brother state.
The action is bone-crunching and bloody but based on physical reality. Statham's Mason fights just as you would expect a man in his fifties with a special forces background to fight. The movie acknowledges that the assassin sent after him has the advantage of being 20 years younger, meaning Mason can't rely on mere athleticism. The violence is at times shocking, with good people getting caught in the crossfire of ruthless state actors who don't want to leave witnesses. Statham isn't playing a superhero here, and Shelter's greatest strength is that it paints a cold and cruel world where the odds seem so stacked against our heroes that the stakes of saving one little girl have more impact than if the Stath was trying to save the planet from destruction.
Directed by: Ric Roman Waugh
Starring: Jason Statham, Bill Nighy, Naomi Ackie, Daniel Mays, Harriet Walker, Bodhi Rae Breathnach
