Safe

To my knowledge, “Safe” is the one and only Jason Statham vehicle to not only utilise the “odd couple” formula, but to effectively epitomise it. The film, a balls-to-the-walls actioner, is a classic case of brain and brawn, pairing a stubble-faced cockney geezer (who once rammed the barrel of a tarred-up shotgun deep inside a grown man’s rectum) with a 12-year-old Chinese girl fitted with a photographic memory. The more analytical of you out there may need no help distinguishing the brain from the brawn - if not, know this: weaponised molestation will not help you pass your SATs; well, not unless inflicted against your examiner, it won’t.

But how does such a bizarre pairing come about? Well, I’ll start with the story of the brain (ladies’ first and all that). 12-year-old Mei (newcomer Catherine Chan) is a Chinese math prodigy who is abducted on the streets of New York by a Triad gang. Led by the elderly Han Jiao (James Hong, “Kung Fu Panda 2”), the Triads wish to use her rare mental abilities for business calculations and number storage, which would mean no computer trail left for the authorities to follow. Mei is hesitant to agree, but the threatening of her dear mother’s life persuades her otherwise.

One year later, Mei has essentially become the Triad gang’s official accountant, albeit a prepubescent one. One day, she is given an apparently very important grid of numbers to memorise; she does so with the blink of an eye, and the piece of paper displaying the grid is burned. She is taken into a car, which is promptly ambushed by the Russian mafia, who wish to kidnap Mei and have her recite the mysterious numbers stored in her brain. Mei escapes, with not only the Chinese and Russian mafia now chasing after her, but the ever-corrupted NYPD too.

Now onto the brawn. Luke Wright (Statham) is an ex-cop and an ex-cage fighter framed for the murder of his beloved wife after failing to throw a fight (in which he only threw one punch). Now a bum, he walks the streets of New York in a wooly cap and a manky hoodie (replaced in the film's second half with a snappy suit), wandering from one homeless shelter to another, avoiding the law, lest he be sent to jail for murder. But after an unfortunate run-in with the colleagues he once betrayed, Luke decides to end it all, and prepares to jump in front of a moving train.

But then he sees something that catches his attention: a small, petrified Chinese girl running through the subway, apparently being pursued by Russian mobsters. Luke collects himself and decides to help the girl in the only way he knows how: kicking some ass. All of a sudden, Luke has a tiny little braniac on his hands, and seemingly everyone is after her and the numbers in her head. But what do these numbers mean, and what do they lead to? Well, take a look at the film’s title: it gives quite a hefty hint.

“Safe” is written and directed by American filmmaker Boaz Yakin, whose 2000 sports drama “Remember the Titans” was an inspiring and heartwarming tale of racial inequality - but that doesn’t mean anything here. This is a Jason Statham action-fest after all, and one that deliberately avoids compassion and sentimentality, even when the plot of a man seeking redemption while protecting a scared little girl would seemingly require such things. Instead, it rather commendably maintains an unwavering, straight-faced expression as it provides the head-smashing, pistol-blasting violence its audience so craves.

As it turns out, Yakin is a terrific director of such mindless, excessive violence. Having not touched the action genre since writing Charlie Sheen/Clint Eastwood flick “The Rookie” in 1990, Yazin shoots the action of “Safe” with a wit and invention similar to another Statham film, Louis Leterrier’s “The Transporter,” be it in a high-speed pursuit, a shoot-out in a hotel or a fist-fight in a restaurant. It is also cut so as to give a proper sense of scope and clarity while still being fast, relentless and, most importantly of all, exciting.

As one would expect, Statham more than steps up to the challenge of no-holds-barred action heroism, which he most recently displayed with much skill and grace in 2011’s “Killer Elite.” In “Safe,” he fires guns, cracks heads, climbs atop a speeding train, stabs a badguy in the throat with a fork and uses a dead body as a crash mat, all performed faultlessly by the English action man. Statham also once again shows off his now-iconic no-nonsense cockney charm, which is almost enough to cover up his apparently limited skills in portraying a father figure and a paternal protector.

Limited too is Yakin's script, which I can fully forgive for lacking in the brains department, but not so much for the confusing muddle into which it renders the plot. With a double-cross here and a character revelation there, the story becomes increasingly jumbled and incoherent as it goes on and nears its clichéd climax. Honestly, I would be lying if I were to say that towards the end of “Safe” I knew who was who, what they were doing and what exactly they were trying to achieve - and I’m fairly certain it’s not me at fault.

“Safe” is unremarkable and disappointingly derivative, but for noisy, erratic, Friday-night fun, it’s perfectly sufficient. Boaz Yakin directs with a keen eye for action-packed carnage, The Stath is just as pleasingly charming and physically impressive as he ever has been, and young Chan, in her on-screen debut, is as cute as a button. For Statham’s fans (and I know there are many of you out there), “Safe” is a fairly safe bet.

6/10