This time he’s playing Michael Mason, a former elite assassin for the British government who\u2019s hiding out on a gloomy island in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland with his dog sidekick, playing chess against himself and pencil drawing to pass the time. There’s a lot of staring out at the sea and into space, as well as one-sided conversations with his mutt to hammer home his self-inflicted isolation. <\/p>\n
That is, until he’s forced to save precocious orphan Jessie (Bodhi Rae Breathnach), who’s been delivering food to Mason by way of her uncle’s trawler. On her way back to shore, her uncle’s boat gets caught in a storm, leading to quite a preposterous “save the cat” scenario when he urges Jessie to return in a rowboat against 10-foot waves \u2013 seriously bad caregiving, unc! But there is some joy in seeing the former competitive diver<\/a> battle the sea in a knitted jumper. <\/p>\n Shelter Images With Jessie injured and in need of medical supplies, Mason must re-enter society, where the plot unfolds, and a venerated cast of British actors enters the frame. It shows just how much affection there is for Jason Statham back home that Bill Nighy, Naomi Ackie and Harriet Walters all signed on to this film. Their presence as former MI6 chief Steven Manafort, his replacement Roberta Frost, and Prime Minister Fordham, respectively, does bring some gravitas to his typically low-brow proceedings. <\/p>\n Fordham and Manafort represent the murky machinations of the establishment. The Prime Minister is in hot water over an unethical surveillance system called T.H.E.A., the exact computer program that captures Mason’s image and launches a shoot-to-kill operation against him. Manafort wants Mason dead for so-called treacherous desertion, keen-eyed Roberta wants answers, but as much as Ackie, Nighy and Walters can imbue their characters with cool charisma, the hackneyed dialogue fails to meet them at their level. <\/p>\n There lies my main grievance with Shelter. Ward Parry’s screenplay might offer a serviceable story in the shadowy spy-thriller genre, but it lacks finesse or depth, instead serving up clich\u00e9s at every corner. Lines like “Mason isn\u2019t just an assassin, he\u2019s a precision instrument,” and “you don’t want this life” function as stock dialogue in a script divorced from subtext. Everything is just too on-the-nose, especially when it comes to Mason. <\/p>\n Shelter is a serviceable story in the shadowy spy-thriller genre, but it lacks finesse or depth, instead serving up clich\u00e9s at every corner.\u201c<\/p>\n There are moments where Statham reminds us he is more than just an action star, but also a penetrating, emphatic actor. Behind his eyes, he conveys the anger, the menace and growing affection he has for his young ward as they fight their way from Scotland to London. He and an enterprising Breathnach, who was recently seen in Chloe Zhao’s Hamnet<\/a>, share a believable chemistry. Her sparky gumption against his rugged fatalism hints at L\u00e9on’s Natalie Portman and Jean Reno.<\/p>\n But L\u00e9on this ain’t, as the movie struggles to bolster Jessie’s motivations as to why she’d want to hitch her wagon to Mason’s murderous star. And instead of trusting in Statham’s silent ability to communicate that internal struggle, of a man let down by his country and brought back to life by a traumatised girl, both are given banal sentences to utter that flatten the emotional core.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n