In Safe, Jason Statham stars as Luke Wright, a MMA fighter who messes up his role in a rigged fight. As a result, the Russian mafia kilsl his wife and decides rather than kill him, they’ll kill anyone he becomes associated with even in the most minute ways, like a simple hello on a train. As Wright gets ready to commit suicide, he sees a 12 year old Chinese girl named Mei (Catherine Chan) trying to hide from the mob. Mei, a math genius and a girl with a photographic memory, was taken from her mother by a Chinese triad boss and is now being used to track business productivity but, more importantly, and memorize the numbers of a code that will be used in a high stakes exchange. When Luke saves the girl, he realizes that the people after her include the same ones who killed his wife making her safety his number one priority while taking out the scum of NYC who are after her and the numbers inside her head.
Directed by Boaz Yakin (Remember the Titans), Safe is dynamic action pact picture that, like Chris said, may be one of Statham’s best films to date (in a leading role). Set in modern day New York but with the gritty look and feel of 1970s action flicks, Statham’s latest is particularly interesting because of the way his past unfolds as the movie progresses. We learn more about his character and how he’s semi-related to the latest group of scumbags that are targeting Mei’s mind, particularly Captain Wolf (Robert John Burke) from the NYPD, which helps bring both emotion and depth to the picture.
While the story is engaging, the main reason to watch this picture is for the action, most notably the gun fights. In most action movies, gun fight scenes typically show the guy shooting and then cut to guys being hit but in Safe we see it all in one shot which elevates the excitement and intensity of every scene. To top it all off, it usually involves Statham taking down a few people while also throwing in a cool martial arts move to complete the kill sequence. He’s spectacul
ar to watch in this one and I’m hoping we can see him in more compelling and exciting features like this down the road. There are two scenes that are really striking, one in a restaurant where he takes on a group of Russian mobsters and another on a subway car that’ll impress the hell out of you as he attempts to save Mei.
Overall, Safe is an exciting action film with a plot that draws you in regardless of its simplicity. It may initially feel like you’re watching Man on Fire, which is a good thing, but I promise this movie is very different and will surprise you on more than one occasion with its crazy stunt work and fight choreography.
The Disc:
The Blu-ray comes with only a few special features but I found them to interesting particularly because of the interviews with the cast and talent cut into the behind the scenes footage and production footage from the film.
- Audio commentary with Writer/Director Boaz Yakin
- ‘Cracking Safe’ featurette (11:20) – General information about the film, story and what influenced it. You learn that is it a relationship movie with an actual relationship since the two main characters are only together for five minutes, which is na interesting realization. Boaz also discusses what influenced the film, namely action films of the 70s and 80s in both look and feel.
- ‘Criminal Battleground featurete’ (7:40) – This featuette gives a breakdown of the villains from Boaz’s perspective and how each played a unique role in driving the movie forward with the limited amount of screen time they each had. He explains how there isn’t one villain and that it seems like it’s the entire city versus Luke and Mei.
- ‘The Art of the Gunfight’ featurette (10:00) – Throughout this featurette various crew members like the producer, stunt coordinator and director discuss what it took to put the action scenes together and how they could make them standout a bit from other films. Though they wanted realism it wasn’t necessarily all realistic but rather heightened believablility that made it all actually feel realistic. There were a lot of very cool and interesting shots throughout the picture, especially since Boaz wanted to capture a lot of action in one shot, which was difficult for Statham and the crew but they pulled it off well.
Movie Rating: Crazy awesome gunfights and a solid story, this is a Statham film you won’t want to miss (7.4/10)
Disc rating: 6/10
Safe is now available on Blu-ray and DVD from Lionsgate Home Entertainment
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