Film Review | Safe

The only clever thing about Safe - the latest bullet-snapping, limb-crackling actioner starring Jason Statham - is the central pun implied in its title.

Safe, you see, refers not just to the film's final destination (a stack of cash tucked away in a securely locked vault) but it also reflects the predicament of the film's protagonists: a so-down-on-his-luck-he's-hit-rock-bottom cage fighter Luke Wright (Statham) and Mei (Catherine Chan), who unwittingly falls under Luke's protection after she becomes embroiled in an international scuffle between the Chinese and Russian mob operating in New York's criminal underbelly... which is helped along by what appears to be a hopelessly corrupt police force.

Beyond that initial bit of para-textual wordplay though, there is little else in the film that will require much thinking or delight you with any moment of wit or depth.

But director Boaz Yakin directs the revenge action thriller with enough devil-may-care relish that, though formulaic as it comes, the film zips along with enough violent energy to make you forget its shortcomings.

For starters, the premise is established within the first five minutes. Perhaps because he knows we've seen it all before - or at least, a variation of it - Yakin doesn't waste too much time relaying Luke's back story before the mob rips what's left of it to shreds. Neither does he explain, or apologise for, Mei's seemingly supernatural capability to absorb and commit long combinations of numbers to memory - an unfortunately useful talent that lands her into the talons of the Chinese mafia, who, in this day and age of easily accessible information, would want nothing more than to have an organic receptacle for their plans.

This is meaty, B-movie storytelling that doesn't really require any exposition or detailed development, and in this sense Yakin and co. play their cards right by keeping things quick and dirty. The fights are violent - so much so that you'll question the '14' rating it got here - and they occur often... just as Mei is practically a mutant superheroine, so Luke is a super soldier who can turn on his fighting skills whenever the situation gets particularly sticky.

But there's also an unpleasant undercurrent of nihilism running through, particularly in the way the police force is also presented as being irredemiably corrupt. This is presented with no nuance, atmosphere or pretence of social commentary; not essentially a negative choice, but it does make it seem as though the characters are just cardboard cut outs to be moved and dispatched with very little consequence.

Nobody's asking for depth, but Safe treads so much familiar ground that unless something truly inventive is provided, our mind will wander to - and eventually, probably settle on - better examples of the genre.

The violent-man-befriending-little girl motif, popularised by Luc Besson's Leon in the early 90s, was also employed more recently in the vigilante superhero comic book adaptation, Kick Ass, where a father-daughter pair fight crime using uncompromising tactics. Love it or hate it, Kick Ass worked on high-octane energy and delivered a heady cocktail of violence, vengeance and teen angst.

Here, we get little more than a shot.

Playing it safe can only get you so far.