In Safe, Jason Statham leaves you reeling as he lashes out nasty recriminatory punishment to both sides of a warring set of guttersnipes, and tacks on for good measure an added rancor towards a bunch of crooked cops.
The cops who have it coming are former colleagues of Statham’s and they’re all on the take from both a Russian and a Chinese pair of mafias, both who are pursuing a mysterious number memorized by a kidnapped precocious 12-year-old Chinese girl . Got it? Human trafficking takes on a new dimension when Mei (Catharine Chan), the child prodigy, gets whisked over to America, “adopted” by a particularly vicious hood, Quan Chang (Reggie Lee). Right about the same time after failing to throw an MMA fight that had a ton of jingle riding on it, Statham is served a fate worse than death by the Russian baddies who lost out on the bet. After murdering his wife, they spare him a similar fate but promise to brutally murder anyone with whom he comes in close contact. So Statham takes to the streets and goes homeless, when he eventually runs into Mei–
–but why am I bothering to make it sound like plot really matters in a Statham movie. All you need to know is everybody around Statham is corrupt and evil and once he gets ticked off they’re messing with an innocent young girl, watch out New York City, and, seemingly, the entire bad-guy world. Long an invincible son-of-a-bitch, Statham finds himself with a screenplay where he may actually for a moment be falsely mistaken for a softie version of himself, given his penchant to protect Mei. So director Boaz Yakin knows enough to step up the violence a few more notches than in other Statham films, which is a little like pouring grain alcohol into 151 proof rum.
The dizzying effects of Safe provide a definite buzz for action film fans as the body count approaches a month in Afghanistan. Killings and assorted violence occur in subways, luxury hotels, the mayor’s mansion, crowded discos, and of course on the streets of Lower Manhattan, which holds up pretty well. Even if much of the film was shot in Philadelphia. Oh, and it’s not really giving anything away to reveal that Mei, who seemingly can memorize an entire phonebook in the time it takes kids her age to eat their cereal, survives alongside Statham. For him, it’s been a long, exciting ride since Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels. For the two of them together, it may be the start of a franchise. Call the next one Safe 2, or How I Overcame A Stiff Kidnapping.
7 Barrels of Dead Bodies (out of 10)