Shelter

Few things in life are as reliable as the Jason Statham-led action-thriller. You know he’ll be a retired hard man with elite skills, called back into action. You know he’ll end up taking down a rogue government department, criminal gang or both. The only question is what weapons he’ll use and who exactly is depending on him to do it. Ric Roman Waugh directs this latest spin on the formula, but it feels recycled from a hundred other films, not all of them the Stath’s own.

This time, our hero is former government operative Michael Mason, living alone on a remote Scottish island with only a delivery girl, Jesse (Bodhi Rae Breathnach), as human contact. When a storm leaves her stranded and injured, they form a reluctant bond — which is, of course, when enemies from his past reappear. They must go on the run to stay alive.

The formula could have used a little more juice.

Waugh knows what he’s doing, so the action scenes are well-executed — often literally, as Mason takes out squads of goons without so much as a scratch. Statham also knows what he’s doing, and delivers exactly what’s needed. But the rest of the film isn’t quite so sure-footed. The script, by Ward Parry, continually swerves human reactions in favour of tough-guy lines, which is inevitably built into the genre, but feels particularly egregious here given that he’s meant to be helping a traumatised child.

Overall, the plot leans heavily into some sub-Bourne secret-service shenanigans that give us lots of scary-sounding code names but not much to engage with. It all leaves poor Breathnach, so effective in Hamnet, struggling to make an impact, and completely maroons the horribly underused Daniel Mays and Naomi Ackie. It’s always nice to see Statham taking henchmen apart, and pleasantly incongruous to witness him doing so while wearing a cardie, but the formula could have used a little more juice.