Crazy To Miss: SAFE

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Synopsis: Summary: A second-rate cage fighter on the mixed martial arts circuit, Luke Wright lives a numbing life of routine beatings and chump change… until the day he blows a rigged fight. Wanting to make an example of him, the Russian Mafia murders his family and banishes him from his life forever, leaving Luke to wander the streets of New York destitute, haunted by guilt, and tormented by the knowledge that he will always be watched, and anyone he develops a relationship with will also be killed. But when he witnesses a frightened twelve-year-old Chinese girl, Mei, being pursued by the same gangsters who killed his wife, Luke impulsively jumps to action… and straight into the heart of a deadly high-stakes war. (Lionsgate)

CRITICS CONSENSUS: CRAZY TO MISS

  1. The violence has the straightforward, unflinching characteristic evident in “Reservoir Dogs” and “Pulp Fiction,” although Yakin’s dialogue falls considerably short of Tarantino’s, both in terms of substance and offbeat humor.
  2. Safe has more action than intrigue (or logic), and it’s boilerplate vicious. It may satisfy Statham’s fans, but they – like he – would do well to enlarge their expectations.
  3. Statham is still playing it safe in Safe, but vulnerability is showing through the cracks.
  4. Enough already with the pointless gun battles that litter Safe like spent syringes in a shooting gallery. No matter how spastically you edit them, you’ll never top John Woo’s early work, or, for that matter, Sam Peckinpah’s. Aim higher, even if it means fewer hits.
  5. Boaz Yakin’s slick direction, marked by quick cuts, unstinting energy and a lack of sentimentality, makes the action scenes satisfying. But he’s a better director than writer.
  6. Love the kid though, and Statham too – it takes a star with quality to be so rock solid in a crumbling yarn.
  7. Safe is both a slavish imitation of cinema gone by and a movie for our time. I found it wickedly entertaining and perversely refreshing in its total lack of contemporary piety.
  8. Safe arrives filled with bombast and sneers but barely any thrills.
  9. You can’t help feeling that an initially adventurous movie has had its rough edges sanded away.
  10. Statham probably isn’t going to be doing Shakespeare anytime soon. But everybody ought to be good at something, and when it comes to this kind of thing, Statham is very good, indeed.
  11. It has neither the Red Bull–fueled crudeness of “Crank” nor the Frenchified lunatic vitality of the “Transporter” movies; it’s not even as cheaply entertaining as the generic hit-man retread “The Mechanic.” Safe shows Statham comfortably treading water, proving all the things he no longer needs to prove.
  12. None of this bears much or any resemblance to the real world, but the violence crunches, the editing snaps and the humorous one-liners pop at well-timed junctures.
  13. There’s nothing terribly original about Safe, but it’s a suitably grimy playground for action cinema’s reigning pit bull.
  14. Safe’s primary contribution to the burgeoning Jason-Statham-kicks-everyone’s-ass subgenre is setting three of its set pieces in crowded New York City venues (a subway car, a hotel dining room, and a Chinatown nightclub) where shootouts lead to believable mass-exodus pandemonium.
  15. The character-building is proffered in bad faith, like every scene in Safe that doesn’t involve bloodshed. Statham can sell a punch, but not his own vulnerability.
  16. What starts out crisp and promising gives way to a conventional shoot-’em-up in Safe, a fast-paced but extremely familiar vehicle for Jason Statham, who can only carry the material so far on his brawny shoulders.
  17. Andy Webster
    Now, if only someone would offer this actor a project worthy of the full range of his talent.
  18. Stephen Dalton
    Though Safe initially seems a little darker and more thoughtful than the British star’s previous comic-book escapades in “Death Race,” “The Expendables” or the “Transporter” trilogy, it ultimately reverts to testosterone-heavy formula.
  19. Aaron Hillis
    A preposterously enjoyable – or enjoyably preposterous – action-thriller.

Source : MetaCritic