Review:
"Safe"
Release Date: April 27, 2012
Rating: R Running Time: 94 minutes Forgive yourself if you assumed Jason Statham’s Safe is a remake of Bruce Willis’ mind-numbing 1998 thriller Mercury Rising. After all, both feature a balding, disgraced lethal weapon trying to protect an innocent child from malevolent forces eager to unlock the invaluable information that’s locked away inside the little one’s head. Safe is actually the crazed creation of Boaz Yakin. His past films A Price Above Rubies, Remember the Titans and Uptown Girls did not signal that he had in him the ability to make Statham’s most loony and entertaining shoot ’em up outside of the Crank series. Statham may physically resemble Willis, but in Safe, he channels the loner persona that his Expendables costar Sylvester Stallone perfected in the 1980s. Heck Statham even adopts a Stallone-like New York accent for the role of an ex-cage fighter. In fact, everything about Safe feels like a Stallone throwback thriller, with Statham playing a flawed but noble hero who protects a 12-year-old Chinese math genius from corrupt cops and rival mobsters. Why is the girl wanted? She’s memorized a number that is so important to her employer, the Triad, that everyone wants the fortune the number will lead them to. Yakin gleefully turns New York into a war zone in Safe, with hotels, restaurants, and subway stations serving as blood-splattered battlegrounds. Keeping the girl safe is Statham’s only priority. What about the few dozen innocent bystanders who get caught up in the violence that follows Statham across the city? Let’s just call them collateral damage. Yakin isn’t worried about the mayhem Statham causes—his goal is to keep the punches and bullets flying at the speed of light. He succeeds in part by removing all logic from the brutal goings on. But who needs logic when Statham’s letting his fists do all the counting? Robert Sims Aired: April 26, 2012 Web site: http://www.lionsgate.com/ |
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