Safe - 2 1/2 smiles

I’m a Jason Statham fan who will make an effort to see his latest action movie on its opening weekend. Statham’s films are typically an unapologetic mix of adrenaline and testosterone. They don’t always make a lot of sense, but they’re never boring and they always deliver what action fans expect. However, "Safe" is full of pure viciousness and I’m not sure why. Perhaps writer/director Boaz Yakin creates such a back-story for Statham’s character, Luke, a world-weary ex-cop, that the resulting violence is supposed to seem reasonable. It doesn’t. And Yakin isn’t interested in having long, drawn-out fist fights that end with both combatants bloody but alive. The objective seems to be to elevate Luke’s body count. He can, and does, kill just about every bad guy he encounters. Nonetheless, Statham pretty much plays the roles that he always plays and he does them well.  He’s a bankable action star, which is probably why he’s inherited the Schwarzenegger/Stallone action mantle.

Luke Wright (Statham) becomes the protector of an 11-year-old girl Mei (Catherine Chan), a math prodigy kidnapped from her native China and made to work for a Chinatown mob boss (James Hong). Her job is to keep the mob’s books, in her head. She also memorize a long string of numbers that are part of a code that everyone, including Russian mobsters and crooked cops, want. It’s hard to keep straight who’s double-crossing whom and over what, but, of course, you know that Luke will triumph in the end. Statham’s rough-hewn charisma and physicality sell “Safe.” I just don’t understand why it has to be so brutal. 4/28/12