The latest Jason Statham January action movie is called “Shelter,” and it has all the ingredients of a typical Statham January quality movie. A man, Mason, living alone in an abandoned lighthouse with his dog, receives ongoing deliveries from a young girl, Jessie, played by Bodhi Rae Breathnach. Then there is a major storm, and Jessie almost drowns before being rescued by Mason. The remaining story is how their friendship grows, and while they are chased by agents of MI6, who have been after Mason for years after he failed to follow orders to assassinate a target, instead following his conscience to do the right thing.
The problem with this movie is that it represents nothing we have not seen many times before, no new idea, the same expected Statham action scenes where he easily defeats any number of enemies trying to kill him – another thing we have all seen way too often.
Actor Bill Nighy (he has no character name on IMDB) plays a high-ranking MI6 agent who was in charge of a special forces group, where Mason was the best agent. This is about the same idea behind all of the Matt Damon “Jason Bourne” movies, “including “a former high performing agent is running for his life from people trying to kill him and his female partner”. Unfortunately, this movie plays almost like a poor man’s Jason Bourne screenplay, this time with a young girl rather than a grown woman. This is another example of an average to below-average “January movie”, where it is just released to try and recover some of the production costs of a finished production that ordinarily would be shelved and lost money.
The Rotten Tomatoes reviews for this film are a below-average 64% rating, and I agree with this rating and recommend this movie only for the most die-hard Jason Statham fans. For the rest of us, save your money.
A Screenwriters Perspective: Current and Past Movies. 