RIOTUS

Jason Statham is no stranger to protecting others onscreen, including little girls. He continues the tradition of male characters who make it their sole mission in movies—Liam Neeson in Taken and Denzel Washington in Man on Fire, just to name a few. In Shelter, Statham is once more in the role of protector as Mason, who watches over an orphan girl, Jesse (Bodhi Rae Breathnach), after her uncle is killed in a storm while delivering goods to the remote Scottish island where Mason’s been holed up for 10 years. 

Shelter, directed by Ric Roman Waugh from a screenplay by Ward Parry, takes its time getting to the action, developing the rapport between Mason and Jesse, who’s naturally distrustful of him, before zipping into propulsive action sequences and chases. Of course, Mason is hiding something from Jesse, a terrifying past as an assassin that isn’t what we might think at first. 

The film banks on the fact that we grow to care for Jesse and her relationship with Mason, which is really all it needs to remain engaging. The characters are a winning duo. We want to see Jesse and Mason live normal lives after all is said and done, but the film shoots itself in the foot by being too run-of-the-mill to have a distinct personality. 

Whereas The Beekeeper—which sees Statham’s Adam Clay on a mission to avenge an elderly woman he worked for after she was scammed—had a comedic edge and a good amount of ridiculousness on its side, Shelter is lacking that spark to make it stand out among the plethora of high-octane action flicks featuring men with mysterious backgrounds who will punch you in the face if you cross a line. 

In the background, Bill Nighy’s shadowy head of MI6 weakly attempts to prove why a super intelligence program, called T.H.E.A., should, in fact, spy on its own citizens (it shouldn’t). Add to that the fact that Naomie Ackie, in a largely limited role, is stuck in a room full of computers and a tech whiz with nowhere to go, and it doesn’t hold up in other areas. Half the time, I wondered why Mason, who’s successfully been off the grid for 10 years and knows the ins and outs of MI6’s spying, would venture out in public without a mask to hide his face. The plot starts to wane shortly after that. 

And yet, Statham’s onscreen presence is the gift that keeps on giving. He and Breathnach are excellent together; the young actress is especially endearing and powerful as Jesse, who is smart and not so quick to believe Mason’s empty platitudes. She just wants to live a normal life because hers hasn’t been. She’s experienced too much death for a girl her age, and, for someone like Mason, who has lost all sense of hope in living such a life, she brings that back for him. 

It’s sweet. It’s lovely. It’ll put a bit of a smile on your face. Is it high-priority viewing, though? Nah. It’s the kind of action film that requires focus but doesn’t demand it of us. The dialogue isn’t bad, but it is occasionally on the nose. An example of that comes when Mason brings Jesse to the man who helped hide him; he tells Mason, “You’ve really started to care for her,” as though we haven’t picked up on that already. But damn it if I didn’t feel something when Jesse tells Mason that she has to save him. His reply: “You already have.” 

This film will not live on in my memory, and you might groan when it keeps things open-ended enough to suggest a sequel (The Beekeeper is getting one, after all), but it’s engaging enough to hold some of our attention. It’s aggressively mediocre, and the action is serviceable at best, but Jesse and Mason make an intriguing enough duo to keep you watching.