Movie Review "Safe"

On the spur of the moment I fired up Jason Statham's "Safe" last night. The movie is streaming on Netscape so it was pretty easy to do. So without further ado lets get our butterstick review of Safe!

It kicks off with a little Chinese girl wandering alone in a subway station; before we can really focus on her, it jumps back 6 hours to her encounter with some Russian mobster; then it jumps back a year to her life in China where we learn it her amazing talent to remember numbers and her recruitment by the Chinese Mafia. This jumping back was a bit jarring, but before my irritation could rouse the movie settled into a forward motion again.

It unfolds slowly, focusing on the little girl for the first part of the movie, until suddenly we are in Statham's life. He's an ex-cop, ex-agent-type-bad-ass killer dude, who finds himself in an unfortunate situation with the Russian Mafia. We chart Statham's character's slow drive through the deadly mafia who do all manner of things to hammer home the point that they are in charge. In the midst of this we learn, as he's beaten by some corrupt cops, that he is an ex-cop because he ratted out some friends. At this point he's at the bottom of the barrel, ready and wanting to die. He's set to throw himself in front of a train when he see the little girl.

From there movie explodes into action. Its non-stop at that point with some great car chases, shoot outs and fist-a-cuffs (as you can imagine). At no point does the movie disappoint after those opening scenes.

And about those opening scenes. In retrospect it was very, very weld done. The backstory is understood in a minimum amount of time, in fact the writer/director's ability to tell the backstory of his characters in almost no lines and screen time is quite amazing. I understood what was going on and didn't need it explained to me in intimate detail (Ocean's 11 or 12, or 17). It was very remarkable I must say.

The movie is a great watch. Its great action, with some memorable characters and some excellent directing. The gun play is cool, the Chinese girl with her  crazy counting is a refreshing change of pace and direction. The criminals are bad guys too. Real bad guys. Its no revenge flick either. Not everyone who you want to die, dies.

Very good watch, I give it Four buttersticks!