In China, the girl Mei is a genius that looks like a computer in numbers. She is abducted by the Chinese Triads and the boss Han Jiao ends Mei to Chinatown, in New York, to help him in the control of his activities. Meanwhile, the fighter Luke Wright has his life destroyed when he wins a fight against the will of the Russian Mafia and accidentally kills his opponent. The Russian mobsters kill his wife and the alcoholic Luke wanders on the streets and hostels with no objective in life. One day, Han Jiao asks Mei to memorize a long number and soon the Russian Mafia abducts the girl from the Chinese mobs. She escapes from the mobsters and is chased by the Russians; by the corrupt detectives from the NYPD; and by the Triads. When Luke sees the girl fleeing from the Russian mobs in the subway, he protects the girl and discovers that the number she had memorized is the combination of a safe where the Triads keep 30 million dollars. Luke is an elite agent and uses his skills to protect the girl. Mei, a young girl whose memory holds a priceless numerical code, finds herself pursued by the Triads, the Russian mob, and corrupt NYC cops. Coming to her aid is an ex-cage fighter whose life was destroyed by the gangsters on Mei's trail. (64%) A 1990's action throwback with a "mercury rising" type plot involving a man helping a child who knows something that is putting their life at risk. Statham plays a more human character than the typical action movie, and just like Bruce Willis' movie there is some heart and a decent amount of characterisation to proceedings, but this still has plenty of its focus on shooting, driving, and fighting. The plot all-in-all is a bit too over- stuffed, and the action could have been handled a little better and steadier; although this is still a worthy entry to Jason's filmography and well and truly worth a look for action fans. Some actors simply aren't versatile and spend their entire careers sticking to what they do best. Can you imagine, for example, Steven Seagal in a stage farce or Hugh Grant in a martial arts flick? They do what they're good at, keeping fans around the world happy but neither of them display that chameleon-like ability to slip from one challenging role to another in the way the likes of Daniel Day-Lewis or Robert De Niro seem so adept. So it is when you walk into a Jason Statham movie. Before the film even begins you know there's going to be fighting and shooting, car chases and slow motion action, baddies being dispatched with cool one-liners, and so on and so forth. It's pointless going in expecting anything else, and just as pointless grumbling as you head for the exit about the plot being too derivative, or the dialogue too cheesy, or that it was all action and nothing else. Safe is a film which is pretty much described by its own title - it is indeed a totally safe action flick, with every character, situation and plot development as familiar as the back of your hand. Director Boaz Yakin makes no effort to disguise the clichés, opting instead to concentrate on noisy spectacle in the Michael Bay/Jerry Bruckheimer tradition. All good and well, if that's the kind of thing that floats your boat.<br/><br/>The story rather resembles movies like Man On Fire and Mercury Rising in the sense that it features a gifted child being hunted by villains, with help coming from a lone protector who happens to be pretty impossible to kill. This time it's a young Chinese girl named Mei (Catherine Chan), a mathematical genius taken from her ill mother and sent to America to work as a "counter" for the Triads in New York. Mei is given a seemingly random list of numbers to memorise, but suddenly becomes the target of the Russian Mafia and a team of corrupt cops. It transpires that the numbers contain a code which will unlock a safe containing $30 million and there are plenty willing to kill to get to the fortune. Mei goes on the run, pursued by enemies from all sides who want the information she alone carries. Enter down-and-out bum Luke Wright (Jason Staham), formerly a cop, more recently a cage fighter, whose life has descended into suicidal depths of depression after the murder of his wife. On the verge of putting an end to his misery once and for all, Luke is offered a chance of redemption when he saves Mei from her pursuers. Suddenly he's back in the game he knows best, rampaging through the city with cops, Russian mobsters and Chinese hit men hot on his trail.<br/><br/>The opening twenty minutes or so are a real mess, with some rushed non-chronological plot exposition and the briefest sketching-in of character. Things pick up once Mei and Luke team up to outwit the bad guys, for it is here when Yakin gets to unleash his thunderous action. No-one will come away from the film thinking they've just witnessed something innovative and ground-breaking. Nor will anyone be writing letters of complaint to the Academy when they overlook these performances at the announcement of next year's Oscar nominations. Safe is what it is . a big, dumb action movie for the boys, with a kill-count that Mei herself might have trouble keeping track of, and sufficient mayhem to keep genre addicts happy. Efficient entertainment while it lasts, but you'll have forgotten it by the next day. Safe has more action than intrigue (or logic), and it's boilerplate vicious. It may satisfy Statham's fans, but they - like he - would do well to enlarge their expectations.
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321 weeks ago