As soon as the movie started, I knew right away that this was going to be a serious chase down theatrical film. After seeing the movie “Greenland 2: Migration” a few weeks ago starring Gerard Butler, you’d thought director Ric Roman Waugh would be exhausted and fresh out of ideas. However, he seems to have mustered enough strength to bring us another action thriller. Shelter marks again a hard hitting collaboration between Jason Statham and Waugh. In this Shelter review, we examine the film’s standout action, grounded tone, and storytelling, followed by a Q&A with Waugh.
But before we get to the Q&A, let’s examine this new flick and what Shelter is all about. I mean when it comes to Statham, I’m not a bit surprise with the explosive, high power fighting scenes that he encounters. Just take a look at his previous film ‘Beekeeper’, where he was to himself, minding his bees. Then all of a sudden, he’s taken out people left and right. So Shelter I don’t expect anything less. Statham is also accompanied by some other British actors which includes Bill Nighy, Harriet Walter, and Naomi Ackie.
Statham plays Mason who is almost marooned at a lighthouse on a remote island at the Outer Hebrides off Scotland’s west coast. Basically a loner, he is frequently visited by a young girl Jesse (played by Bodhi Rae Breatnach) and her uncle who travels by boat to bring him food and supplies. Unfortunately, Jesse as she tries to return to her uncle’s boat gets caught in a storm. Mason has to rescue her while her uncle drowns leaving her alone with this stranger. Jesse is badly hurt and Mason is limited on aid to heal. So he has to go into town where he has hid himself from the world and with good reason. As much as he tries to hide his face, cameras are everywhere and his image gets detected by the wrong people. As soon as his whereabouts is known, a task force is sent out to execute him and the girl.
Mason a former assassin is now in charge of saving a life, Jesse’s, who at first didn’t trust him but now embraces him as a father figure and does not want to leave him. Mason reaches out to former M16 agent Arthur Booth (played by Daniel Mays) who helped keeping his identity a mystery now needs him to help Jesse get to safety. Meanwhile the new head of M16 Roberta Frost (played by Naomi Ackie) wants to bring Mason in for questioning. Her predecessor Steven Manafort has a different idea for Mason and is calling for him to be eliminated because he abandoned the agency. Kind of gives you the Jason Bourne saga.
Overall, “Shelter” has good energy, decent plot, and great cinematography. I particular like the storm scenes and the raw imaging. Not a lot of glitch’s and glamour. The same could be said about the music. Pretty much basic tones but enough to extenuate the scenes to give it that hype you anticipate in every action of the film. The movie releases January 30th and is a must see. It rates a (3/4) 🍿
Q&A with Director Ric Roman Waugh:
Expressing my opinion
Chief Editor