Shelter – Review

Cert – 15, Run-time – 1 hour 47 minutes, Director – Ric Roman Waugh

Michael Mason (Jason Statham) has spent the last decade living on a remote Scottish island, however MI6 and rogue government forces are soon after him when his location is revealed after taking in a young girl (Bodhi Rae Breathnach).

2002’s Ali G Indahouse is not a film I ever expected a Jason Statham flick to remind me of. Yet, as a rapidly-cut car chase plays out the edits make it seem as if the cars are barely going above 40. Calling back to the drag race scene where Sacha Baron Cohen’s street poser makes sure to not exceed the 30mph speed limit. It’s a messy and anticlimactic look to the sequence which echoes into later action sequences where the action itself feels cut around or overshadowed by a cluttered scene. Trying to rely on its star more than forming more solid action.

Shelter is a film that’s leaning into the fact that Jason Statham is in the lead role. It’s tone is one that’s constantly suggesting an inner struggle, a dark past for the main character. It’s something that Statham tries to lean into in his performance, but the screenplay is relying on him and therefore gives little detail. For much of the first half his dialogue is limited to short, single sentences as he refuses to give away details to the young girl, Jesse (Bodhi Rae Breathnach), he’s taken in after saving her from a storm.

Whilst looking after her as she recovers from an injury, her uncle lost to the storm, his face is falsely recognised by MI6 surveillance as an internationally wanted terrorist, his character Michael Mason having remained hidden on an isolated Scottish island for the last ten years. Soon, when forces arrive on the island on night, he finds himself, with Jesse, on the run, escaping capture, or the threat of death from rogue government agents (led by Bill Nighy who’s commanding Bryan Vigier to kill Mason on sight). To get here, however, there’s a lot of slow build-up. Sat in the drawn-out, grey cycle of Michael’s remote island life and the lack of communication he provides Jesse with. There’s the feeling of promised action to come, however when it does arrive it feels brief and scattered.

The process of Statham’s character building up to reaching the various forces who are after him is drawn out and full of clear stages that at times feel slightly improvised as they lead from one to the other. Further marks of the film trying to lean into star power to get it through and not having the screenplay or narrative to be able to allow for that to be the case. Leading to a bland sense of one-note congestion that fails to create a proper sense of energy or pace as Mason often finds himself trying to escape trained killers with his, and Jesse’s, life.

Interactions between the pair match the bluntness, and to some extent coldness, of the film. There’s a feeling of hope that things will somehow come together if certain elements click. But, those elements need the help of those which feel more reliant meaning that Shelter stumbles and falters because of that. The overall film ends up feeling lacking in thrills and entertainment value as it draws out the stages of its story and occasional scrappy action.

Trying to lean into Statham as the lead, despite giving little for him to work with, Shelter is a slow-to-get-going action flick that bridges such sequences together with a rambling narrative.