Jason Statham is one of my favourite action heroes and my favourite movies featuring him are Crank 1 & 2, which are a couple of very original black humor comedies. I have seen Safe several days ago and I must admit it kind of shocked me!
The first few minutes of the movie seemed like the story would be a cool crime movie about revenge, which I always enjoy seeing. Suma sumarum, Jason Statham was a MMA fighter whose pregnant wife has been killed by the Russian mob, so a year later he is a hobo (because those mobsters also promised to kill anyone he befriends) contemplating suicide in a NYC subway station. Meanwhile, a genius little Chinese girl (Mei) had been brought to the USA by the nefarious triads so she would use her unusual intelligence to work as an accountant for their New York branch. However, the same Russian mob that killed Statham's wife kidnaps that little girl, and by a leap of faith Jason sees them in that subway station and decides to kill them saving the girl along the way. The story then gets more complicated and involves Jason and Mei running away from Russian mafia, Chinese triads and corrupt cops. It also turns out that Jason was a black ops agent who worked with these cops a long time ago, and some time later even the mayor of New York and Jason's ex-partner, who is an unstoppable assassin, get involved in this mess.
The story may be convoluted, but that's just the tip of the iceberg. The most amazing and at the same time shocking thing in the movie is the extreme violence with an insanely high bodycount. Literally even the smallest conflict in this movie turns into a mass murder and every problem is solved with violence. It's not just Statham who does the killing; every minor character kills at least a dozen of human beings throughout the movie.
A good example of what the film is like is the scene in the triad's headquarters. Before this scene, Jason and those dirty cops decide to temporarily join forces in order to steal something from those headquarters (I won't spoil what). However, the HQ is a nightclub that is guarded by an army of criminals, so the cops arm themselves and simply storm the building. During this raid, hell breaks loose as they fight their way through endless hordes of bad guys who all get quickly killed. So bullets are fired, blood is spilled, bones are broken, brains are blown to pieces, villains get killed, some of the cops also get shot, and even innocent civilians die. Worst of all, all these deaths occur so quickly that it's hard to tell what's going on. Although the scene only lasts a few minutes, there are more than 30 kills shown in it.
There are more scenes like this, some of them being even more violent; like the part in the hotel where a special team of triad members ends up slaughtering innocent bystanders and then getting themselves "blown to bits" by the police, but I don't have time to explain every particular scene. When I think about it, this is more of a war epic than a crime movie, since some of the shootouts turn into large-scale battles on the streets of NYC. I actually wonder why did the makers of this movie bother to hire all those extras and spend money on filming their deaths, when the entire movie could have been made with 75% less deaths. Safe somewhat reminds me of the GTA video-games (with all those extreme shootouts in urban environment), but it's even more over-the-top.
In the end, Safe is an OK film, but it could have been better. The directing, plot, cinematography and acting are all nice, but for some reason almost every scene in the movie ends with violence, and watching all those murders eventually gets tiresome.
The first few minutes of the movie seemed like the story would be a cool crime movie about revenge, which I always enjoy seeing. Suma sumarum, Jason Statham was a MMA fighter whose pregnant wife has been killed by the Russian mob, so a year later he is a hobo (because those mobsters also promised to kill anyone he befriends) contemplating suicide in a NYC subway station. Meanwhile, a genius little Chinese girl (Mei) had been brought to the USA by the nefarious triads so she would use her unusual intelligence to work as an accountant for their New York branch. However, the same Russian mob that killed Statham's wife kidnaps that little girl, and by a leap of faith Jason sees them in that subway station and decides to kill them saving the girl along the way. The story then gets more complicated and involves Jason and Mei running away from Russian mafia, Chinese triads and corrupt cops. It also turns out that Jason was a black ops agent who worked with these cops a long time ago, and some time later even the mayor of New York and Jason's ex-partner, who is an unstoppable assassin, get involved in this mess.
The story may be convoluted, but that's just the tip of the iceberg. The most amazing and at the same time shocking thing in the movie is the extreme violence with an insanely high bodycount. Literally even the smallest conflict in this movie turns into a mass murder and every problem is solved with violence. It's not just Statham who does the killing; every minor character kills at least a dozen of human beings throughout the movie.
A good example of what the film is like is the scene in the triad's headquarters. Before this scene, Jason and those dirty cops decide to temporarily join forces in order to steal something from those headquarters (I won't spoil what). However, the HQ is a nightclub that is guarded by an army of criminals, so the cops arm themselves and simply storm the building. During this raid, hell breaks loose as they fight their way through endless hordes of bad guys who all get quickly killed. So bullets are fired, blood is spilled, bones are broken, brains are blown to pieces, villains get killed, some of the cops also get shot, and even innocent civilians die. Worst of all, all these deaths occur so quickly that it's hard to tell what's going on. Although the scene only lasts a few minutes, there are more than 30 kills shown in it.
There are more scenes like this, some of them being even more violent; like the part in the hotel where a special team of triad members ends up slaughtering innocent bystanders and then getting themselves "blown to bits" by the police, but I don't have time to explain every particular scene. When I think about it, this is more of a war epic than a crime movie, since some of the shootouts turn into large-scale battles on the streets of NYC. I actually wonder why did the makers of this movie bother to hire all those extras and spend money on filming their deaths, when the entire movie could have been made with 75% less deaths. Safe somewhat reminds me of the GTA video-games (with all those extreme shootouts in urban environment), but it's even more over-the-top.
In the end, Safe is an OK film, but it could have been better. The directing, plot, cinematography and acting are all nice, but for some reason almost every scene in the movie ends with violence, and watching all those murders eventually gets tiresome.