Just about every key aspect of what Shelter is—a Jason Statham actioner, where he plays an exiled ex-spy, in a movie with a January release date—is something seen before, and usually done better than this.
The Beekeeper, two Januarys ago, was absurd but enjoyable. A Working Man, last year, changed this up—it was released in March–and while it wasn’t great, it at least luxuriated in its absurdities.
Shelter is just a slog. The first half hour is deathly boring, and although it picks up when the spy plot gets going, it never congeals into anything worthwhile. Also, the action is distractingly sloppy. It’s helmed by the journeyman action director Ric Roman Waugh (Shot Caller, Angel Has Fallen), who isn’t nearly as good at this as Guy Ritchie or even David Ayer. This one, at least, is set in Britain; The Beekeeper tried to pass itself as set in Massachusetts, even though it was shot in England with an almost entirely English cast.
Statham is introduced living alone in a lighthouse on an island somewhere in the Scottish Highlands. At one point, he rescues an orphaned teenage girl (Bodhi Rae Breathnach, who played Shakespeare’s daughter from Hamnet). We eventually discover that Statham’s character is a retired British commando, who the entire spy apparatus (led by veteran spy master Bill Nighy) is trying to capture and/or kill.
The film’s one interesting idea is that Britain has near-total surveillance on its citizens, which has already been exposed by a Snowden-style leak that’s embarrassed the government. However, even though its existence is no longer a secret, the surveillance is still up and running. (Nighy’s character is named “Manafort,” seemingly named for the 2016 Trump campaign manager who got indicted, convicted, and pardoned. Though Paul Manafort, for all his alleged misdeeds, was never a spy.)
There are trappings of the John Wick franchise, including a dog getting killed early on and a complicated shootout in a crowded nightclub, but the film doesn’t care that much about either. Most of the plot’s a non-stop cat-and-mouse chase in which various teams of assassins are chasing Statham and the girl through Scotland and England, and he’s trying to stay alive and find a suitable home for his new ward. And both can come out ahead of their foes, even though Statham is 58 and the girl is a teenager with no military training.
There are plot holes—if Statham knows they’ll come down on him if his face pops up on surveillance, and he knows the surveillance is there, why doesn't he ever wear a mask? Also, shouldn’t the point come where the spymasters tracking Statham say something like, “You know what? That guy is almost 60 years old. Are we sure he’s still good at fighting and doesn’t, like, have a bad back?”
That would make a pretty good gag, to see them immediately proven wrong. But one problem with Shelter is that it’s completely lacking in any levity or humor. The best Statham films lean into their absurdity and leave the viewer with a smile, but this one’s just morose. (This year’s other new action movie, The Wrecking Crew, not only features better action, but is consistently hilarious.)
Nighy’s a highlight as the main bad guy, but the talents of Naomi Ackie are wasted in a role as a spy functionary. And worse than that, the main plot resolving itself by Statham enlisting the help of a character described as a “violent trafficker” leaves a sour taste, especially since nearly every latter-day Statham picture has him fighting evil human traffickers.